Ramón Fonseca Mora (born 14 July 1952) is a Panamanian novelist, lawyer and co-founder of Mossack Fonseca, a former law firm based in Panama with more than 40 offices worldwide. He was minister-counselor of Juan Carlos Varela, and president of the Panameñista Party until he was dismissed in March 2016, due to the Brazilian Operation Car Wash. In 2016, Mossack Fonseca was raided by police on suspicion of money-laundering, bribery and corruption. Fonseca and his partner Jürgen Mossack were arrested and jailed on 10 February 2017. They were initially refused bail because the court saw a flight risk, but were released on 21 April 2017 after a judge ruled they had cooperated with the investigation and ordered them each to pay $500,000 in bail. Numerous lawsuits including serious allegations of collusion with despotic regimes, mafia, and global criminals are ongoing. Early life Fonseca was born on 14 July 1952 in Panama and studied law and political science at the University of Panama and the London School of Economics. As a young man, "he hoped to save the world". As a young man Fonseca reportedly considered joining the priesthood. Also, according to the ICIJ he revealed in a 2008 television interview that, "I didn't save anything, I didn't make any change. I decided then, as I was a little more mature, to dedicate myself to my profession, to have a family, to get married and have a regular life … As one gets older, you turn more materialistic." Career In 1977, Fonseca and Jürgen Mossack founded the law firm Mossack Fonseca in Panama City. It went on to become the world's fourth-largest offshore law firm, with more than 40 offices all over the world. In March 2018, the firm shut down in the wake of its involvement in the Panama Papers affair. He is also a member of the Panameñista Party. Fonseca is also an award-winning novelist. He has written four novels, along with plays and short stories. He has been awarded the Ricardo Miró Prize, the national literary award in Panama, twice, for novels Dance of the Butterflies (1994) and Dream City (1998). Criminal investigations Panama Papers Following the leak of 11.5 million Mossack Fonseca documents by an anonymous whistle-blower to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung in 2016, it was revealed how offshore tax regimes were exploited for tax purposes. While offshore entities are not in themselves illegal, the documents