Loyal Figures To Far Right Leader Marine Le Pen Named In Panama Papers

From now on it will be very difficult for far right party leader Marine Le Pen to present herself as the sole bastion against a corrupt political system, as many of her most faithful figures are directly affected by Panama Papers scandal, including her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Strange irony. 'For years has Marine Le Pen been hammering on the harm the world finance cause to the common interest'. She and her party presented themselves as 'moralistic' of the regional elections, explaining that their success was due to the French's disgust of the politicians' wrongdoings.

Only this time the Panama Papers scandal stroke right in the heart of her 'sacred circle' and the most loyal ones including her close friends and family members.

Le Monde, the daily which was one of the 108 organisations to publish findings on the leaked documents, alleged on Tuesday that Frederic Chatillon, a longtime friend of Ms Le Pen and head of Riwal, a communications company used by her party, sent about €300,000 off shore, with the help of an adviser to the National Front leader.

According to Le Monde, Mr Chatillon set up a Hong Kong-based shell company called Time Dragon, owned by an entity in the British Virgin Islands, a known tax haven. The BVI-based company appears in the list of entities created by Mossack Fonseca, the Panama-based law firm from which the leaked documents originated.

Mr Le Pen, the FN’s founder, is separately being investigated by French authorities over suspicion of tax evasion.
Prosecutors suspect that Mr Le Pen may have been the ultimate beneficiary of an undeclared HSBC Swiss bank account with €2.2m of funds, mostly in gold bars and coins. Le Monde reported on Tuesday that one of the companies used, Balerton Marketing Ltd, appeared in the Panama leak. Mr Le Pen has denied any wrongdoing.

On Monday evening, the FN pre-empted the revelations in Le Monde, saying that it was “not involved in the Panama papers affair” and would “not tolerate any confusion”.

French bank La Société générale is equally involved as one among the five banks which hold the largest number of offshore accounts via Mossack Fonseca's cabinet: 979 companies controlled by subsidiaries in Switzerland, Luxembourg or Bahamas.