Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has called for the prosecution of Nigerian public officers who are found to be holding foreign accounts and shell companies in Panama.

Panamanian company, Mossack Fonseca, which has dozens of offices all over the world, sells its shell firms in cities such as Zurich, London, and Hong Kong – in some instances at bargain prices.

The investigation into the activities of Mossack Fonseca was carried out by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 other news organizations around the world.

According to ICIJ, “Clients of Mossack Fonseca can buy an anonymous company for as little as USD 1,000. However, at this price it is just an empty shell. For an extra fee, the firm provides a sham director and, if desired, conceals the company’s true shareholder.”

“The result is an offshore company whose true purpose and ownership structure is indecipherable from the outside. Mossack Fonseca has founded, sold, and managed thousands of companies. The documents provide a detailed view of how Mossack Fonseca routinely accepts to engage in business activities that potentially violate sanctions, in addition to aiding and abetting tax evasion and money laundering.”

The massive document leak and investigation has so far implicated more than 128 politicians around the world, including the king of Saudi Arabia and the children of the president of Azerbaijan.

While speaking with Punch Newspapers on Thursday, Falana said private citizens named in the leak could be exempted, but public officers among them were liable for prosecution.

“Private persons are not prohibited from keeping accounts wherever they like. However public officers have always been barred by the Code of Conduct Bureau and Code of Conduct Trubunal Act from operating foreign accounts in any manner whatsoever.”

“To that extent, former and serving public officers whose accounts have been published in the Panama Papers are liable to be prosecuted if they had failed to declare them in their asset declaration forms.”

“Secondly, the onus is on them to prove that any funds in such accounts emanated from their legitimate income.”

While several notable Nigerians have been named in what is being described as the largest data leak in the history of journalism, the prominent public officials – Senate President, Bukola Saraki and his predecessor, David Mark – have been linked to offshore companies.

The Panama Papers include approximately 11.5 million documents – more than the combined total of the Wikileaks Cablegate, Offshore Leaks, Lux Leaks, and Swiss Leaks.

The data primarily comprises e-mails, pdf files, photo files, and excerpts of an internal Mossack Fonseca database. It covers a period spanning from the 1970s to the spring of 2016.