Another Panama Papers launderer jail bound

Panama lawyers Mossack and Fonseca

 
1,038Views 4Comments Posted 25/09/2020

A 76-year-old accountant from Massachusetts was sentenced Thursday to 39 months in prison for tax evasion, money laundering and wire fraud.

Gaffey was also sentenced to two years probation, according to a press release from the US Justice Department.

Judge Richard Berman of the Southern District Court of New York also ordered the confiscation of

$5.4 million, the payment of a compensation of $ 3.4 million and a fine of $25,000.

Gaffey, who had pleaded guilty on February 28, was charged at the end of 2018, along with the Germans Harald Joachim von der Goltz and Dirk Brauer, and the Panamanian lawyer Ramsés Owens, who was part of the defunct Mossack Fonseca firm.

Last Monday, the 83-year-old Von der Goltz was sentenced to four years in prison and an additional three years on supervised release; In addition, Judge Berman ordered the confiscation of $5.3 million, and that the convict restore $3.4 million and pay a fine of $ 30,000 thousand.

Gaffey was an accountant for Von der Goltz, who, although born in Germany, had Guatemalan nationality, but resided intermittently in the United States.

This is considered the first criminal case related to a large number of records of companies and fictitious companies of now-defunct Panama Law Firm Mossack Fonseca which many used to hide fortunes and other transactions, according to the publications of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ,), in 2016.

Owens and Brauer have not appeared in person before US courts.

"Owens and Brauer are still at large," says a press release from the Department of Justice

Prosecutors have noted that Owens and Brauer are responsible for creating and managing structures used by US taxpayers to avoid paying taxes.