Jürgen Mossack

Early life Mossack was born in Fürth, Bavaria, Germany, on 20 March 1948. His father, Erhard Mossack, was a mechanical engineer who had served as a combat soldier with the rank of Rottenführer (senior corporal) in the Waffen-SS, the armed wing of the Nazi Party's Schutzstaffel, during World War II.

When Jürgen Mossack was 13 he moved with his father and the rest of his family to Panama. Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, said in 2016, when contacted by journalists, that they had documents related to Erhard Mossack but would not share any information, owing to possible security risks.

Mossack received a bachelor's degree in law from Universidad Católica Santa María La Antigua in 1973.

His brother, Peter Mossack, was the Panamanian honorary consul in Frankfurt.

Career In 1975, Mossack worked as a lawyer in London before returning to Panama to start a firm in 1977. Mossack's practice only became Mossack Fonseca in 1986, when it merged with the firm run by Ramón Fonseca Mora, a Panamanian novelist, lawyer, and politician. On 7 April 2016, he announced that given the leak he was resigning from Conarex.

Mossack is a member of the International Bar Association, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, the Panama Bar Association, the International Maritime Association, and the Maritime National Association.

News stories in April 2016 established that the Panamanian consul in Frankfurt was using the "Panama" email ID and questioned whether he should be doing so. Mossack's brother Peter served as Honorary Consul of Panama in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, from 2010 to 16 April 2016.

Both Mossack and Fonseca were arrested in Panama in February 2017 and were released on bail two months later, after each paid US$500,000 in bail.

According to court papers filed on 15 October 2019, Mossack and Fonseca "are the subjects of an FBI Investigation in the Southern District of New York" and are "defending criminal charges against them in Panama."

On 20 October 2020, prosecutors in Cologne, Germany, issued international arrest warrants for Mossack and Panamanian Ramón Fonseca. Charges against the two law partners included accessory to tax evasion and forming a criminal organization, with the firm noted as central to the investigation.

Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca were put on trial on 26 June 2023 in a court in Panama City for alleged money laundering. The prosecution asked for up to 12 years in prison for concealing assets linked to the "Operation Car Wash" case. It also requested sentences for 26 other people and the acquittal of four other defendants. Both were acquitted of all charges in June 2024. Investigators began focusing on the law firm after finding an array of apartments in the names of relatives of an imprisoned politician, The New York Times reported.

Personal life Mossack has one son and four daughters. Mossack is married to Leydelises Pérez de Mossack, herself a legal professional.

Mossack is a collector of gold coins, and a member of the International Maritime Association and the Club Union of Panama.

In popular culture In 2016, Steven Soderbergh announced he would produce a film about the Panama Papers affair. The comedy-drama The Laundromat premiered at the Venice Film Festival on 1 September 2019. Mossack and Fonseca tried to block the film's release on Netflix by filing a defamation lawsuit against Netflix in October 2019, arguing that the ongoing FBI investigation and possible trial in New York as well as their defence against criminal charges in Panama could be negatively prejudiced by the way they are portrayed in The Laundromat. A judge ruled that the case was filed in the wrong court, transferring it to Los Angeles. With a court decision still pending, the film was made available for streaming by Netflix on 18 October 2019. In the film, Mossack is portrayed by Gary Oldman and Fonseca by Antonio Banderas.