Panamania

JUST as we were about to forget the pain of the theft of Bangladesh Bank's dough, the pain returns with a stab. With Samuels of West Indies having more muscles in his biceps than our Mushfiqur Rahim in his whole body, the West Indies vs. India and the Bangladesh vs. India games show that the only difference between the West Indies and Bangladesh is an 'ox' – during the last over, the former hits like one, the latter thinks like one. 

But here's some consolation. The casino world's Kim Wong returns another US$ 829,000 to the Pilipino authorities for the money to make it back to Bangladesh Bank. Not without the counting of the cash taking several painstaking hours and yielding two fake 500 peso bills. I hope Mr Wong knows that the money is being RETURNED to Bangladesh and is not being INVESTED here. After all, US$1M investment here can earn him a Bangladeshi citizenship and allow him to blend in with the crowd just fine as opposed to being a sore thumb in his native Philippines. An attractive proposition. I hope he knows that we don't have casinos, but can offer T20 bookies at best. 

But the hackers would have chosen an even better destination than the already welcoming Philippines had they known about Mossack Fonseca, promising masked services without Mushak. Ah, spelling 'foundation' as 'fundation' comes at a hefty price – not making it to the elite club to qualify as a clientele of the Panamanian firm. Ironically, the discovery of Mossack Fonseca is courtesy of none other than hackers, who, unlike those involved in the Bangladesh Bank theft, pale into insignificance. 

Hacking in Panama. Hacking in Bangladesh. The former reveals a massive inflow of dollars, the latter an outflow. Sarbanes Oxley doubles up as there is a major shift in basic accounting:

Net worth = Assets – Liabilities + Panama

The scope of Panama Papers is so big, that it can't be called Panama Gate, but has to be called Panama Canal, opening not a flood gate, but a sluice gate. In fact, the sluice gate has been open for a long time, only to the chosen few. 

A boon for the fishermen at the Sueddeutsche Zeitung and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) who deem the Panama Canal as the best place to catch the really big fish. In fact, it all smells so hilsha fishy, that the upcoming Pohela Boishakh will consist mainly of catches from the Panama Canal. After all, the Hilsha, inherently a sea creature, has all its eggs deposited to an offshore account, er, sweet water river. 

The shockwaves are massive. Iceland suddenly melts, beckoning its PM to jump into the Panama Canal as we discover where the buddy of Vladimir Putin has been puttin' his money while the reputation of Lionel Messi is poised to get messy.

But it is the goings on of the untouchables. After all, it's not a scandal. It's called Panama Papers. Sounds so classy. For us commoners, it would have been called Leaks, making us akin to smelly diapers.

Let's see where the paper chase leads us to…

The writer is an engineer at Ford & Qualcomm USA and CEO of IBM & Nokia Siemens Networks Bangladesh turned comedian (by choice), the host of ABC Radio's Good Morning Bangladesh and the founder of Naveed's Comedy Club. 
E-mail: naveed@naveedmahbub.com