Photo by William Banzai7
BLOOMBERG -- President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that information in the Panama Papers implicating people in his inner circle to offshore transactions was accurate, but dismissed the leak -- which he tied to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. -- as part of U.S. efforts to influence Russia’s upcoming elections.
“Odd as it may seem, they aren’t publishing false information on offshores,” Putin said during his annual call-in show Thursday. “They’re not accusing anyone of anything specific. They’re just casting a shadow.”
The documents show at least $2 billion in transactions involved people and companies that had ties to Putin, according to reports published this month by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
The Russian president said Goldman Sachs owns the parent of the German newspaper that received leaked files from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. The newspaper, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, is owned by a Munich publishing family and a German media group that has no corporate affiliations to Goldman Sachs, according to a statement from Stefan Hilscher, the managing director of the paper. The U.S. bank declined to comment.
In 2013, Goldman Sachs signed a three-year agreement to advise the Russian government on burnishing the nation’s image overseas and attracting more institutional investors.
Continue reading at Bloomberg...
---
UPDATE
Now, less than 24 hours later, the Kremlin has issued an apology and explanation for Putin's statement. Great Leader apparently got some bad information from one of his cronies.
Kremlin Backtracks On Goldman Sachs Statement
INVESTING IN RUSSIA IN 2016
Bloomberg analyst discussion from Thursday.