Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca offices raided

Offices of offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca in El Salvador have been raided, confirmed Panama's attorney general. Several documents and equipment has been seized as part of the raid, said the official.

A criminal investigation was launched by prosecutors in Panama following the world's greatest data leak that has exposed several world leaders and top officials. According to the state prosecutor's office, media reports of tax evasion and money laundering by world figures will be fully investigated.

Mossack Fonseca has denied any wrongdoing in the leaks referring to the allegations as "misconceptions". In a phone interview on 3 April, Mossack Fonseca director Ramon Fonseca told Reuters: "We are a company who after almost 40 years has never been formally accused of anything. We are dedicated to doing legal structures which we then sell to intermediaries like banks or lawyers or accountants and they manage it from there and we do not have any control over that. We are not responsible for how they manage those structures however they may want to do them.

"We have formed more than 240,000 companies throughout our history and the vast majority of these for legitimate purposes. Of course, there are some that end up being used for illegitimate activities but that is not our responsibility because we are not the ones who are managing them, we are not acting on them."

Earlier, Swiss police raided the offices of Uefa in connection with the sale of Champions League contracts that were also exposed in the Mossak Fonseca documents leak. Claims were made in the leaked documents that new Fifa president Gianni Infantino was involved in negotiations with father-son businessmen team, Hugo and Mariano Jinkis, who were indicted in Fifa's bribery allegations scandal.

Meanwhile, Panama vowed on 6 April to form an independent commission to review the country's financial practices. President Juan Carlos Varela said in a televised address: "The Panamanian government, via our foreign ministry, will create an independent commission of domestic and international experts, which are recognised for their experience, to evaluate our current practices and propose the adoption of measures that we will share with other countries of the world to strengthen the transparency of the financial and legal systems."