Explained | Panama Papers: The Whistleblowers | Explained News,The Indian Express

After the source of the Uber Files investigation, the whistleblower of the 2016 Panama Papers has given his first interview. What motivates such whistleblowers, and why doesn’t India have any on that scale?

Within 10 days, two whistleblowers have gone public in interviews given to major media outlets. Is this a coincidence?

It could be.

On July 13, Mark MacGann, who worked with Uber as a senior lobbyist for years, was named in an interview with The Guardian as the person who had leaked the 1,24,000 documents that are now described as the Uber Files. MacGann was revealed to be the source of the data towards the end of the publication of the series of investigative reports that make up the Uber Files, a collaboration led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), The Guardian, and 42 other media outlets, including The Indian Express.

And on July 22, the whistleblower of the Panama Papers gave his first-ever interview to Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer, who were earlier investigative reporters with the German daily newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, and who now collaborate with the German magazine Der Spiegel.

The Panama Papers, a sprawling and impactful offshore investigation by the ICIJ in which The Indian Express partnered, exposed how the rich and powerful parked and moved their money in and out of global tax havens. The investigation, which was published in April 2016, won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-panama-papers-the-whistleblowers-8046306/

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