One of the two reporters who broke the Panama Papers scandal has spoken about fears for his safety, fears which were proved grounded with the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, among others.
Eleven million financial and legal records on the clients of a Panama-based law firm were leaked to reporters Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer.
The story eventually involved 400 journalists from outlets around the world.
Asked about security worries by the Harvard Gazette, Obermaier said there were concerns at the beginning when they realised they had found information on several heads of state, several people with connections to the Mexican drug cartels, the Ukrainian organized crime gangs, relatives of Bashar al-Assad, good friends of Vladimir Putin.
"We were, like, we have to basically think about security, and we have to make a risk assessment. What does it mean for our lives, for our families’ lives, for our colleagues’ lives? And we stepped up security like hell.
I really feared for something to happen, and it happened afterward. Our colleague in Malta, Daphne Caruana Galicia — she was not part of the original team, but she reported a lot about the consequences of the Panama Papers — and she was killed in a car bomb.
"For example, we did not leave any stuff in our offices that was not encrypted. We told all the colleagues who we involved that they cannot speak with anyone, not even their partners, about it. I came back from half a year’s parental leave when [it] started, and colleagues and family were [asking], 'What are you doing; you don’t publish anymore?' In the beginning, I was, like, 'I can’t tell you,' but that only led to more questions, so then I [said], 'We are doing a project archiving documents.'
"It was exhausting; it was frightening, I had complete nightmares in the weeks before publication because all the people we were writing about appeared in my dreams, and there were these moments when I drove home at night. Our workplace is in the suburbs of Munich, so it’s a long way to the city center. I was on my bicycle, and there was a car behind me on a road. There was no traffic, only the two of us, and he was not overtaking me. I was like, “Is this one of them?” But in the end, it wasn’t.
"We did security plans. On the days of publication, my family was not in town. We had police patrolling the building, we had more security staff there. But in the end, I think still in Germany we live in a luxury cell for journalists. I feared more for our partners all around the world, in Russia, Africa, Latin America, and Turkey. Our Turkish partner received a death threat from a businessman very close to Mr. [President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan. Our Russian partners had to leave the country for a while. Our Latin American partners, there was online voting after the publication on “What shall we do with them? Shall we dump them in the bay, or shall we put them in prison?
"That’s what really frightened me because I think, after sharing the data, we shared the risk. We could feel a little bit safer, but we shared the risk with journalists in a very dangerous environment. And I really feared for something to happen, and it happened afterward. Our colleague in Malta, Daphne Caruana Galicia — she was not part of the original team, but she reported a lot about the consequences of the Panama Papers — and she was killed in a car bomb. And in Slovakia, a journalist [Ján Kuciak] who also reported on the aftermath of the Panama Papers was shot, together with his fiancée. In both cases, we do not know if it was related to the Panama Papers, but you start thinking more about the consequences of what you are doing."