谁公开了巴拿马文件 揭秘调查记者团队
The leak of millions of private financial documents linking scores of the world’s rich and powerful to a secretive Panamanian law firm peddling in shell companies and offshore bank accounts began more than a year ago with a cryptic message to a German newspaper from an anonymous whistle-blower.
把世界上的有钱人和有权人与一家兜售空壳公司和境外银行账户的神秘巴拿马律师事务联系起来的好几百万份私人金融文件的泄漏，开始于一年多前德国一家报纸收到的一位匿名举报者发来的令人困惑的信息。
“Hello, this is John Doe,” the source wrote to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, a Munich-based newspaper that had worked on several investigations into tax evasion and money-laundering scandals. “Interested in data?”
“你好，我是张三，”该消息人士发给《南德意志报》(Süddeutsche Zeitung)的信息写道。“对数据感兴趣吗？”《南德意志报》的总部在慕尼黑，该报曾对逃税和洗钱的丑闻做过调查报道。
“We’re very interested,” replied Bastian Obermayer, a veteran of several investigations into financial scandals.
“我们非常感兴趣，”调查过几起金融丑闻的老手巴斯蒂安·奥伯梅尔(Bastian Obermayer)答道。
In the months that followed, the confidential source fed Süddeutsche’s reporters a steady stream of emails, scanned letters, photographs and client data ripped from the servers of Mossack Fonseca, a Panama City law firm that has been dogged for decades by investigations into its suspected connections to money laundering. It was a trove that ultimately added up to 11.5 million individual files equivalent to 2.6 terabytes of data.
在随后的几个月里，该消息人士源源不断地向《南德意志报》的记者发来了从莫萨克-冯塞卡(Mossack Fonseca)律师事务所的服务器上盗取的电子邮件、信件扫描、照片，以及客户数据，几十年来，这家位于巴拿马城的律所因涉嫌与洗钱有关多次被调查。这个宝库最终加起来共有1150万份文件，相当于2.6太字节(terabytes)的数据。
The German reporters worked for more than two months verifying that the documents were genuine and trying to unravel the complex web of secret transactions. “It became an addiction,” Mr. Obermayer’s colleague, Frederik Obermaier, wrote in an emailed response to questions. “We often messaged each other at crazy times, like 2 a.m. or 4 a.m. about the newest findings.”
德国记者花了两个多月的时间来核实文件的真实性，并试图解开其中秘密交易的复杂网络。“我们都着迷了，”奥伯梅尔的同事弗雷德里克·奥伯迈尔(Frederik Obermaier)在回答本报提问的电子邮件中写道。“我们经常在荒唐的时间，比如凌晨2点或4点，把最新的调查发现用短信发给对方。”
But the sheer volume of data contained in the initial batch soon overwhelmed the German newspaper’s five-person investigations team. The paper turned for help to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in Washington, D.C., which has coordinated several previous global projects on financial data leaks.
但是，首批文件中包含的数据量很快就让这家德国报纸的五人调查小组感到不堪重负。该报向总部设在华盛顿的国际调查记者同盟(International Consortium of Investigative Journalists，简称ICIJ)寻求帮助，这个组织此前曾协调过几个金融数据曝光的全球项目。
Within weeks, the ICIJ had assembled an army of about 400 journalists from more than 100 news organizations in 80 countries, including The Guardian and BBC in Britain, the French daily Le Monde, the Sonntagszeitung in Switzerland, and L’Espresso, an Italian weekly newsmagazine. Many of the same journalists had collaborated with the center before on investigations into tax havens including the “Swiss Leaks” project in 2015 and the “Lux Leaks” series in 2014.
几周之内，ICIJ就集结了一支约400名记者的队伍，他们来自80个国家的100多家新闻机构，包括英国的《卫报》(the Guardian)和BBC、法国的《世界报》(Le Monde)、瑞士的《周日报》(Sonntagszeitung)，以及意大利新闻周刊《快讯》(L'Espresso)。他们中有不少人此前与国际调查记者同盟有过合作，参加过避税天堂的调查，包括2015年的“瑞士解密”(Swiss Leaks)项目、以及2014年的“卢森堡解密”(Lux Leaks)系列。
The ICIJ did not approach to The New York Times to participate. “This is an important subject, which we have written about ourselves, and continue to follow,” said Matt Purdy, a deputy executive editor at The Times. The leaked documents provide even more information, he added, and the work is to be applauded.
ICIJ没有与《纽约时报》接洽让之参与。“这是一个重要的题材，我们自行做过这方面的报道，并继续跟踪这个题材，”时报副执行主编马特·珀迪(Matt Purdy)说。他补充说，这次泄露的文件提供了更多的信息，有关工作值得赞扬。
The media partners dissected the mountain of data that the Süddeutsche’s journalists received in several batches, each of which were forwarded to a secure ICIJ server. The project was code-named Prometheus, after the Titan from Greek mythology who stole the secret of fire from the gods.
这些媒体伙伴对《南德意志报》记者分批收到的海量数据进行了分析，每批数据都转存到ICIJ的一个安全服务器上。该项目代号普罗米修斯，取自希腊神话中从神山偷来火种的提坦。
Luke Harding of The Guardian, a former Moscow correspondent and a veteran of several international collaborations, including WikiLeaks in 2010 and the Edward Snowden leaks in 2013, said the constant stream of new material meant that reporters were regularly relying on each other to help them keep track of new details.
《卫报》的卢克·哈丁(Luke Harding)曾担任报社驻莫斯科的记者，也是几次国际合作的老手，参加过包括2010年的“维基解密”(WikiLeaks)和2013年爱德华·斯诺登(Edward Snowden)泄漏的文件的调查报道，哈丁说，源源不断的新材料意味着记者们经常相互依赖，才能有助于他们随时得到新的细节。
Unlike past projects, where the leaked data were provided as a “discreet, one-off leaks” of hundreds or at most thousands of documents, “this was in real time,” said Mr. Harding, whose team focused on transactions involving individuals with ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. “We were constantly getting new data.”
与过去的项目不同，以前泄露的数据是几百份、最多几千份文件的“小心地一次性泄漏”，哈丁说，而这次“是实时的”，他的小组主要关注与俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·V·普京(Vladimir V. Putin)有关系的个人的交易。“我们正在不断地获得新数据。”
With such a large number of people trolling through the same database, the partners needed to agree early on with a common strategy for collaboration and for parsing out the research, as well as a joint promise to hold off on publishing until everyone was ready. The partners held a series of secret meetings, some of which involved more than 100 people. The first took place at a rented room of the National Press Club in Washington in June, followed by others in Munich, London and Lillehammer, Norway.
这么多的人在同一个数据库中进行搜索，需要这些媒体伙伴们在早期就对合作以及如何分工的共同战略达成一致，还需要各方承诺，在每家媒体都做好发表的准备之前，推迟消息的发布。合作各方举行了一系列的秘密会议，其中有些的参加人数上百。第一次会议是去年6月在华盛顿从美国全国新闻俱乐部租的一个房间里举行的，之后的会议分别在慕尼黑、伦敦，以及挪威的利勒哈默尔举行。
“The danger was always that if something happened in the world and the reporters in that country would get terribly excited and want to publish right away,” Gerard Ryle, the director of ICIJ, said.
“总有一种危险，那就是如果世界上发生了某个事情，事情所在国的记者会非常兴奋，他们想马上发消息，”ICIJ主任杰拉德·赖尔(Gerard Ryle)说。
About a dozen staffers at ICIJ, plus freelancers, devoted themselves entirely to the project, building the tools used by its partners while also preparing a dozen or so of its own stories on the leak. Mr. Ryle and his deputy, Marina Walker Guevara, were in near-constant communication with what had become a sprawling team.
ICIJ的十几名员工，加上自由职业者，全时投入了这个项目，他们制造了供合作伙伴使用的工具，同时也为ICIJ自己有关泄露的十几篇报道作准备。赖尔和他的副手玛丽娜·沃克·格瓦拉(Marina Walker Guevara)与一个越来越大的团队保持着几乎不间断的沟通。
“This was not a story where the documents were the whole story,” Mr. Ryle said. “You had to work for it, you had to go outside of the documents. You could see a window, but you had go out and look.”
“这不是那种泄露文件本身就构成一个完整故事的故事，”赖尔说。“你需要做更多的工作，需要做文件之外的工作。文件为你提供了一个窗口，但你必须出去寻找更多的东西。”
The ICIJ made a number of powerful research tools available to the consortium that the group had developed for previous leak investigations. Those included a secure, Facebook-type forum where reporters could post the fruits of their research, as well as database search program called “Blacklight” that allowed the teams to hunt for specific names, countries or sources.
ICIJ有许多功能强大的研究工具，是该机构为此前的泄密调查所研发。其中包括一个安全的Facebook式论坛，记者们可以在上面发布自己的研究成果，还有一个名为“黑光”(Blacklight)的数据库搜索程序，可以让这些团队搜寻有关特定名字、国家或来源的资料。
While the original documents were written in 25 different languages, most of the communication on the forum took place in English, with reporters actively sharing interesting tidbits with the relevant specialized teams. Each news organization took their own precautions, restricting access to the secure computers that were used to connect to the ICIJ’s servers and ensuring that these were not accessible through their newsrooms’ regular networks.
尽管原始文件是用25种语言写就，论坛上的交流大多还是使用英语，记者们会积极地与相关专业团队分享有趣的花絮。每个新闻机构都要采取各自的预防措施，限制其他人使用被用来和ICIJ的服务器相连的安全电脑，确保它们不会与新闻编辑室的常规网络相连而被其他人访问。
Once specific names were found in the database, reporters dug deeper for any clues that might connect those individuals with a shell company, a bank account, or an ever-widening cast of characters. Working in concert with a team of reporters out of The Guardian’s safe room, Mr. Harding uncovered a web of more than 100 complex international transactions that revolved around an offshore firm linked to a musician named Sergei Roldugin, who is one of Mr. Putin’s closest friends.
一旦在数据库中发现了特定的名字，记者们就进一步深挖，寻找能将这些个人与空壳公司、银行账户或一个不断扩大的人际网络联系起来的任何线索。哈丁协同一个记者团队在《卫报》的安全屋工作，发现了一个围绕一家离岸公司建立的网络，涉及超过100项复杂的国际交易，该公司与名为谢尔盖·罗尔杜金(Sergei Roldugin)的音乐家有关联，而后者是普京最亲密的朋友之一。
“We knew there was a link to Putin’s buddy,” Mr. Harding said. “We knew money was being sent offshore from Russian state banks and being recycled back into Russia” through the offshore company.
“我们知道这事和普京的朋友有关联，”哈丁说。“我们知道有资金在从俄罗斯国有银行流向海外”，然后通过这个离岸公司“又回到俄罗斯”。
Late last year, he said, the teams ultimately managed to establish a connection between that firm and another that owned an upscale ski resort near St. Petersburg that is a favorite of Mr. Putin. Further reporting eventually revealed that the same resort was the venue for the secret 2013 wedding of Mr. Putin’s daughter Yekaterina news of which only surfaced last year.
他表示，去年末这些团队终于把这家公司和另一家离岸公司关联起来，后者拥有一座靠近圣彼得堡的高端滑雪度假村，那是普京最喜欢去的地方之一。进一步的调查最终显示，这个度假村正是普京在2013年为女儿叶卡捷琳娜(Yekaterina)举行秘密婚礼的地方，有关婚礼的消息直到去年才浮出水面。
“In the Panama Papers, there was no Swiss bank account” that could provide a clear money trail, Mr. Harding said. “But in Russia, where your daughter gets married says a lot about what places you hold dear.”
“在巴拿马文件中，没有哪个瑞士银行的账户”可以提供明确的资金走向，哈丁说。“但在俄罗斯，你女儿结婚的地点很能说明哪些地方是你所看重的。”
Other news organizations used the Mossack Fonseca documents to expose the offshore accounts of political figures in countries like France, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, as well as several international film stars and sports luminaries.
利用从莫萨克-冯塞卡泄露的文件，其他新闻机构曝光了其他一些人物在在离岸银行设立的账户，其中包括法国、巴基斯坦和沙特阿拉伯等国家的政治人物，以及几位电影和体育明星。
By Tuesday, the disclosures had already claimed their first high-level political victim. Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, the prime minister of Iceland, announced his resignation after revelations that he and his wife were clients of the Panamanian firm.
截止周二，已经出现第一位因这项泄密调查而倒台的高层政治人物。在被爆出他和妻子是那家巴拿马律所的客户以后，冰岛总理西格门迪尔·戴维·贡劳格松(Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson)宣布辞职。
“Many rich and powerful people who have accumulated a lot of wealth must be having a spasm of panic about now,” Mr. Harding said. “They are realizing that actually their banking secrets are not safe and email is not a private medium.”
“不少积聚大量财富的权贵人物这时候肯定陷入了恐慌，”哈丁说。“他们正在意识到，自己在离岸银行的隐秘操作实际上并不安全，邮箱也并不是什么私密媒介。”
“I think we are entering a new golden age for investigative journalism,” he said.
“我想我们正在进入调查性报道一个新的黄金年代，”他说。
