Image by Sarah MacReading

So you think you know about the Panama Papers. You've read the explainers, you've browsed the website set up by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), you've talked to your friends about it and you all agree that this is important stuff. The largest leak, data-wise, in history! A window into the lives of the rich and powerful, who hide their ill-gotten gains even from their spouses! A worldwide scandal that has the potential to reveal devastating dirt on politicians all over the globe! This is journalism at its finest, a revealing of one stream in the strange, secretive flow of money that the powers that be would rather keep hidden.

Or so you think, if you are one of those simplistic fools who gets his news from outlets like the Guardian and the German newspaper Süeddeutsche Zeitung, two of the ICIJ's most prominent partners. Why would you trust the reporting and expertise of dozens of experienced journalists when everyone knows the news—the real news—can be found scattered throughout a handful of mostly pseudonymous blogs that will tell you all about the Panama Papers, and toss in some top-notch stuff about 9/11 and Atlantis for good measure?

To break through that mainstream media blockade that is preventing the world from knowing the truth—which mainly boils down to "Vladimir Putin is totally a good guy"—I've compiled some of the theories about the Panama Papers that the Man doesn't want you to know:

All Those Attacks on Putin Are Pure Media Bias

Let's start with the top layer of the onion, the easiest counternarrative to swallow, which is that the outlets with access to the leaked data aren't interested in going after the real bad guys but will instead direct their attacks toward the opponents of the US and UK like Putin, who has been linked to this story because several of his closest associates were named in the leak. One of the most popular posts on the subject comes from Craig Murray, a former British diplomat turned activist who was denouncing the media's treatment of the Panama Papers from the moment the first stories about the leak appeared.

"The filtering of this Mossack Fonseca information by the corporate media follows a direct western governmental agenda. There is no mention at all of use of Mossack Fonseca by massive western corporations or western billionaires—the main customers," Murray wrote. "Do not expect a genuine expose of western capitalism. The dirty secrets of western corporations will remain unpublished."

That post was written Monday—later that week, the corporate media had published information about Americans, many of them white-collar criminals, as part of a continuing rollout of information contained in the leak. That would appear to put to rest a lot of concerns about how there weren't any Americans in the papers, but it's all a smokescreen, or something. Probably.

The Panama Papers Are a US Hit Operation on Russia

That layer of the onion is just the tip of the iceberg though, but as we peel back another we learn that the media isn't just biased, it's in the pay of the US government. See, the ICIJ is partnered with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, which is funded in part by—duh duh duh—the US government. It's right there at the bottom of the OCCR's website!!! Hat tip to Wikileaks, who always scrolls all the way down:

Naturally RT—the famously unbiased and pure outlet funded directly by the Kremlin—picked up this story and ran an article that began, "Washington is behind the recently released offshore revelations known as the Panama Papers, WikiLeaks has claimed, saying that the attack was 'produced' to target Russia and President Putin." (Wikileaks later clarified that it thought talk of a plot against Russia was "nonsense.") That's emblematic of the Russian response to early stories linking Putin to the Panama Papers. RT also published a statement from a Kremlin spokesperson dismissing those links as mere "insinuations," and saying that the whole thing was a CIA operation anyway:

"We know this so-called journalistic community perfectly well, it is clear to us that a number of journalists who are part of it have hardly majored in journalism; there are many former representatives of the [US] State Department and the CIA, along with other intelligence agencies."

Oh, and that brings us to the next turtle down in this never-ending tower of turtles:

The CIA Is Behind Everything

Putin and his government obviously have a vested interest in denouncing anything that makes them look corrupt, but there are plenty of other figures who don't think this all adds up. Take it away, Alex Jones and John McAffee:

McAfee, of course, is the dude who created the McAfee anti-virus software, and is also apparently trying to become the Libertarian Party presidential nominee; Jones is the famous conspiracy theorist who one time thought VICE predicted 9/11. They are in agreement here: The Panama Papers are bullshit.

In an interview on Jones's radio show, McAfee called the leak a "smear campaign orchestrated by the US government," and Jones agreed. "This is a blackmail operation. It's been in the news that Germany has the most infiltrated media by the CIA," the host said. "Clearly it's a way to try to bring in more regulations, more international law."

"Every single one of [the journalists] is a CIA," McAfee added helpfully.

But that's not all...

George Soros Is a Puppet Master

No good major news event is complete unless a bunch of people believe that liberal George Soros is behind it. Soros is a bogeyman for many conservatives as well as people who believe that the Illuminati are real. For more, let's turn to a website called Before It's News:

"The Panama Papers wasn't a 'leak.' It was yet ANOTHER 'orchestrated' attack by Illuminati front man George Soros intended to attack Vladimir Putin. Why? Because Putin isn't playing by Illuminati banking rules, and the global elites aren't having it. "

Soros's Open Society Foundation helps fund the ICIJ (along with other major philanthropic groups), and that's the smoking gun that proves that the whole thing was a Soros-run joint. Not only that, says Before It's News, but Soros and his friends are behind the refugee crisis in Europe as part of a massive effort to destabilize governments and create a New World Order. Need more proof? A guy at something called Veterans Today says the New World Order is "almost certainly behind the Panama Papers," and another Before It's News piece chalks all this up to the "Anglo-American Axis" and the "Zio-Anglo-American criminal cabal," which is "so incensed that Putin broke up their little genocide party in Syria that they will do everything possible to get back at him."

Breitbart took it a step further, breaking down all of the ICIJ's funders, including the Ford Foundation, which "has funded everything from Sesame Street to the radical TV show Democracy Now." Fuck, dude. The liberals are behind it all! That explains why far-right European groups were targeted too, as Infowars helpfully pointed out.

Now you may be wondering, What about Iceland Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, who stepped down as a result of being named in the papers? How does he fit into this? Before It's News has the answer, of course: "Iceland is the only nation in the world that took punitive measures against the primary Banksters responsible for defrauding the citizenry, collapsing the banking system and crashing their economy. Simply put, you just don't get away with sending Banksters to prison and not expect serious blowback from the criminal AAA cabal."

OK, you're saying, nodding your head, But can we make the anti-Semitism that's vaguely implied with phrases like "Banksters" and "__Zio-Anglo-American criminal cabal" a little bit more explict?

Dont' worry, we got you:

The Mossad Is Behind Everything, or Something

In reality, says Veterans Today, "The Panama Papers are a scam, real documents turned over to a Mossad-run organization that now has dirt on even more people and more power to make a very nasty world an even darker and nastier place."

In fact, that article says, Wikileaks was the same sort of Mossad-endorsed plot, and the real bad guy here is, uh, Mitt Romney, who, says here, was caught by the FBI "with Maria Perez, his mistress in Cuba, daughter of former KGB chief Yuri Andropov.... The tapes told of drug running and money laundering and more, so much more."

How much more? "The biggest single set of interlocking corporations that should have been exposed [by the Panama Papers]," Veterans Today says, "are tied to the nearly 3 trillion dollars missing from the US Department of Defense, money 'disappeared' when the investigative records were mysteriously the victim of an aircraft accident on 9/11/2001 at the Pentagon, one of the most defended buildings on earth... The Panama Papers could eventually expose certainly who is really behind 9/11."