The exposé of the Panama Papers that has made headlines all over the world and has made many companies very nervous here should not have been a surprise.

The advocacy group Global Financial Integrity has brought hearts beating and palms of hands sweating to many of the greedy rich – the most powerful people in the world.

The fortress walls of offshore secrecy have so many cracks now water leaks at quite a gush.

The surprise is why are these people surprised.

The first leak that trickled out of the cracked wall was here in the Cayman Islands in 2013. A large number of major figures world wide including some of the largest companies were found to be hiding their wealth to escape taxes within the walls of secrecy on our tiny island.

The second was the HSBC scandal where there was another leak in the secrecy wall. HSBC’s Swiss private bank helped wealthy account holders worldwide to dodge the taxman.

Now comes the biggest leak. Panama. And Russia’s Vladimir Putin has emerged through the leaky walls. Not forgetting all those Chinese governmental heads who have touted zero tolerance to tax evaders. The cracks in the wall have their personal heads poking through the now large cracks.

And Panama has not signed up to any of the US and UK tax information initiatives. Panama has been touted as the only place left in the world where people can hide their money.

So what does this mean for Cayman.

Actually it could be a good thing as Panama has proved now to have the secrecy walls with the largest cracks.

I am sure there are going to be a lot more stories of our rich, powerful and famous people who have been hiding all their wealth whilst clamping down on the lesser people who have tried to follow suit.

Of course the smaller the cracks in the walls the minnows will flow through.

However, the cracks are getting bigger and bigger every day.
Soon a secret will not be a secret any more.

Once I had a secret account
That lived behind secret walls
All too soon my secret account
Became no secret when the wall falls.

Similar words were once sung by Doris Day. That dates me.