The Panamanian authorities could be hiding names of influential families, high-profile officials, managers or powerful businessmen of media related to the Government, after the delayed search order executed at the head offices of law firm Mossack Fonseca & Co.
A few days ago, José Alberto Álvaro, President of the National Association of Lawyers (CNA), reported that the recently created Second Specialized Against Organized Crime Public Prosecutor´s Office confiscated 100 computers with information from the law firm, when in fact they had access to data of only 16 companies.
Alvarez described this as a serious "violation of professional secrecy that lawyers have".
On that same day, the Director of the CNA met with Attorney General Kenya Porcell and Prosecutor Javier Caraballo in the head offices of the Public Ministry (MP).
According to Alvarez, Porcell informed him that they, indeed, collected the information that existed on the computers of Mossack Fonseca.
The argument for such action, told the news source, is based on the fact that the authorities "argue technical reasons for custody of all the information that is owned by the firm...".
Similarly, it was known that, on that date, Porcell said to Alvarez that what is obtained from the hard drives of these computers will not be made public.
However, following the announcement of the initiation of an investigation of this global scandal by the United States, experts in federal complaints explained that the Panamanian political power wants to, literally, "crush" everything that has to do with the Panama Papers.
This is how lawyer Sídney Sittón sees the situation. He argues that the Public Ministry intends to vitiate the course of this investigation.
"What they intend is to “bury” each and every one of the evidences which are kept within that law firm; It seems that the search was made belatedly intended to give managers of the law firm to hide everything what they wanted", revealed Sitton.
In terms of the legal and the credibility aspects, the image of the firm, of the country, of the Government and of Ramón Fonseca Mora, Director of the firm, himself will become even more spoiled now that a proceeding has been filed in the United States, said former Attorney General Rogelio Cruz.
"What is clear is that an investigation that the US judiciary system undertakes will cause prejudice to whomever is involved with all of this even if in the end they come out acquitted of possible charges".
Another aspect to which reference has been made is why the Panamanian media that participated in the international research on this affair have not provided more details, taking into account that they have more than 11 million of related documents in their hands.
For the former presidential candidate Juan Jované, the explanation "has to do with the political and economic interests of those media versus their relationship with the current Government."
Lastly, Jované mentioned that the image of the Panamanian Justice and financial system "is whirling just as would a piece of paper whirling up in the air...".
