Confidential records of more than 200,000 offshore accounts in the Panama Papers will be published online today.

According to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the Washington-based organization that has been co-ordinating reporting on the records, this is being done in hope that public scrutiny of the newly released material will generate further tips about possible corruption and tax dodging.

Director of the ICIJ, Gerard Ryle says “we think this is a logical next step in the investigation”. He says “We have 370 journalists around the world looking at the data, but it’s so vast, I mean 11½ million documents, we know we’ve missed things.”

Ryle said his organization hopes members of the public will scour the new Panama Papers data release and flag any potential malfeasance they spot.

The information, which has been released in a searchable database, lists:

• The names and addresses of more than 200,000 offshore companies included in the Panama Papers leak.

• The name of anyone listed as a director or shareholder of the offshore companies in question.

• The identities of dozens of intermediary agencies that helped set up and run those accounts through Mossack Fonseca, the Panamanian law firm from which the records were leaked.

Until now, only a number of high profile names have been made public since a group of global media outlets broke the news of the massive document leak last month.

The Panama Papers database allows searching for a person or offshore company by name and then mapping out links between individuals and offshore entities.

Source: Caribbean News Now