Panama Papers: Individuals and companies named in document leak set to be revealed

'We think that information about who owns the company should be public and transparent,' says the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

Tax havens such as Panama have been under scrutiny after recent disclosures (Getty)

Thousands of individuals and offshore companies found in the Panama Papers are about to be made public via a search database.

The information will be released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) combining documents uncovered in a 2013 ICIJ investigation into offshore accounts by UK residents and the much larger Panama Papers leak.

The papers had been hacked from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca and published in April by journalists across the world.

ICIJ's data analyst, Rigoberto Carvajal, built a version of this searchable database for internal use by journalists in September.

Marina Walker Guevara, ICIJ's deputy director told CNN: "You'll see companies and their official owners. This is information that's never been available

"We think that information about who owns the company should be public and transparent."

The database, however, will not disclose the actual documents showing an individual's wealth or contract details.

Marina Guevara added: "This is not disclosing private information en masse.

"The bulk of the documents will remain confidential for journalists to explore.

"We think that the leak was given to ICIJ because we can apply the rigor of journalism."

Mossack Fonseca has denied any wrongdoing and has stated some individuals identified in the papers were not even clients.

Peope will be able to search indivuduals and offshore companies involved in the leaked papers from 7pm (BST) on 9 July on the ICIJ website.