By Kenneth Rijock From Caribbean News Now

PANAMA CITY, Panama — Javier Caraballo, the lead organised crime prosecutor investigating Panama Papers law firm, Mossack Fonseca, since April 2016, has obtained an extension of time in which to continue his ongoing investigation of alleged criminal conduct at the firm.

He has requested judicial assistance from 16 foreign jurisdictions, and sent out material, after requests were received from six, all arising out of the Panama Papers documents.

The public relations staff at Mossack Fonseca has gone to great pains to deny that the law firm is guilty of money laundering, or of facilitating the proceeds of crime, of corruption, or of terrorist financing.

Perhaps the most bizarre statement to come out of the Mossack firm is its insistence that, notwithstanding that it has drawn the largest six figure fine ever levied by British Virgin Islands regulators for massive AML and CIP deficiencies, it is innocent because the firm was not charged with a crime in the BVI.

However, since Panama has no attorney discipline process worthy of the name, expect Messrs Mossack and Fonseca to continue to operate their firm, which constitutes a clear and present danger to financial institutions in North America and Western Europe, for some time in the future, courtesy of a system where a lawyer can buy a law degree for cash, and obtain a law licence, and later routinely return to the practice of law after serving a term of imprisonment for a felony, and where no lawyers are ever disbarred.

For more on this story go to: http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/topstory-Panamanian-organised-crime-prosecutor-obtains-extension-in-Panama-Papers-law-firm-investigation-32660.html