'Panama Papers' law firm says 'hacked by servers abroad'

One of the founders of Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the center of the explosive "Panama Papers" revelations on off-shore holdings, told AFP on Tuesday his company was hacked by servers abroad.

Ramon Fonseca said the firm had lodged a criminal complaint with Panamanian prosecutors over the breach. He added that in all the reporting so far "nobody is talking of the hack, and that is the only crime that has been committed."

Ramon Fonseca, one of the founders of Panama's Mossack Fonseca, says the law firm has lodged a criminal complaint with Panamanian prosecutors over the breach of data. Photo: AFP.

Shockwaves from the Panama Papers investigation. Image: AFP.

In a telephone message responding to AFP questions, Fonseca said: "We have lodged a complaint. We have a technical report that we were hacked by servers abroad."

He also rued the fact that reporting on the 11.5 million documents taken from Mossack Fonseca's computer system focused on the high-profile clients who had used the law firm to set up offshore companies to hold their wealth.

"We don't understand. The world is already accepting that privacy is not a human right," he said.