Red Cross decries ‘beneficiary’ designation in Panama Papers
Citing an ‘enormous risk to humanitarian efforts worldwide,’ the agency vows to clear its name.
On Sunday, news broke that the agency’s neutrality may have been compromised by “being falsely tied to mysterious or unidentified funders” in the Panama Papers.
Newspapers worldwide—including Swiss Info —reported that the nonprofit has been thrown into an alleged scandal of smoke and mirrors:
The Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca (MF), which facilitated the creation of offshore accounts, offered the Brotherhood Foundation and Faith Foundation to its clients to hold the shares for their offshore companies. As these two foundations have no shareholders themselves, they provided a useful cover for the real beneficiary of the offshore account. Around 500 companies that used the services of MF made use of the two foundations as a smokescreen. To further allay any suspicion of wrongdoing, MF listed ICRC as the beneficiary of these two foundations.
The story goes on to say:
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