In the Panama Papers, a massive database of 11.5 million internal documents from leading offshore incorporator Mossack Fonseca leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, nominees are everywhere.

There are nominee directors to sign corporate documents, nominee shareholders to appoint directors and even nominee beneficial owners, used to mask the real owners of a company should Mossack Fonseca ever be compelled to divulge that information.

“The use of nominee directors is a key channel of tax evasion,” said Gabriel Zucman, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and expert on offshore tax evasion. “It makes shell companies effectively anonymous, which in turn enables tax evaders to disconnect themselves from their assets and makes it easier for them to dodge taxes and regulations.”

Leticia Montoya — a low-level administrator at Mossack Fonseca — is one of the world’s most prolific nominee directors, serving on the boards of more than 10,000 offshore corporations. When French journalists working on the Panama Papers investigation paid a visit to her house in Panama City, she brushed by them, claiming to be her sister, and refused to answer questions.

In Canada, the use of nominees seems to be less widespread. But this scarcity makes companies that use nominees all the more noteworthy.

The job was simple, McIntyre said in this exchange during the New York deposition:

Q. It was just somebody paid you to use your signature and nothing more? A. That is correct. Q. Is it literally nothing more? A. It’s literally nothing more. Q. That you did nothing other than sign papers? A. Nothing other than signed papers. Q. So you were just a name to put on documents? A. A Canadian director. Q. Did you ever have any concern about the legality of the documents you were signing? A. No. Q. Why was that? A. I was receiving them from lawyers. Q. You felt that because you were getting something from the lawyer, that that was enough to protect you personally? A. Yes.

McIntyre first got into this side-business when she was working as a secretary for a Toronto lawyer in the early 1990s. Her boss approached her and asked her if she wanted to make extra money by signing documents, and introduced her to a Swiss lawyer named Andre Zolty, she said in her deposition.

Zolty would send documents for McIntyre’s signature and she would return them.

Zolty has come up repeatedly in the nine-month long Panama Papers investigation as he registered 895 offshore corporations through Mossack Fonseca.

De Grandpré Chait, the Montreal law firm that represented Zolty in Canada, told the Star that they made verifications over the years and determined Zolty “had an irreproachable reputation.”

Yet in 2010, Zolty was identified by name as “the primary source of the nominee entities and false documents” by U.S. federal attorney Wifredo Ferrer during a criminal trial for massive tax evasion.

Two years later, the Associated Press reported that Zolty was under “investigation in Switzerland and other countries for the alleged laundering of money from illicit drug sales.” He was subsequently cleared by Swiss and New York police.

Zolty did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

“To be an officer and director on 200 companies is craziness”

De Grandpre Chait, for its part, says it has recently reinforced internal controls.

“Nowadays, when we incorporate in Canada … we ensure that we know the identity of the beneficial and real owners of the shares, the legality of their business ventures and the source of the funds transferred to Canada,” wrote Eric Lalanne, president of the firm. “Consequently, the mere use of Canadian corporations solely to act as nominee for non-resident entities is no longer accepted.”

But for 15 years, McIntyre’s business with De Grandpre Chait and Zolty was lucrative. For her name and signature, Zolty paid her up to $20,000 per year, McIntyre said in the deposition. For more than a decade, she continued to sign documents, often 20 or 50 at a time, even signing blank power of attorney forms that grant legal decision-making powers so that names and dates could be added later.

De Grandpre Chait said it was unable to find any traces of blank power of attorney forms in their files.

McIntyre used various different addresses on company forms, including one where her grandmother lived, she said.

Then, as quickly as it began, McIntyre’s career as a paper corporate director came to an abrupt end. The Toronto lawyer — by this time, her former boss — called her in May 2007 and told her to resign from all the companies so a former employee of De Grandpre Chait, Annette Laroche, could take over.

Annette Laroche/Facebook

“In 2007, they just kind of said we don’t need you anymore and they flipped (to Laroche),” McIntyre told the Star in a phone call.

Since May, she has been selling motorcycle parts out of her home after being evicted from the garage she was renting, according to posts she made on social media.

After months of trying to arrange an interview, CBC and Star journalists visited her apartment two weeks ago.

Her partner angrily dismissed reporters, saying McIntyre has already testified in court and would not agree to be interviewed.

“She doesn’t know s--t,” he said. “She’s not talking to you people.”

Toronto Star Reporter Rob Cribb, and Dave Seglins, of CBC, visit the home of Karen McIntyre for comment.

Corporate records confirm that after McIntyre resigned, she was replaced on each company by Laroche, who lives in the Montreal suburb of Deux-Montagnes.

Together, McIntyre and Laroche were the faces of almost 200 Canadian companies, corporate records show.

They likely never realized that lending their names to anonymous corporations would ultimately tie them to international scandals and include them as parties to multimillion-dollar lawsuits.

From 1999 to 2008, McIntyre was listed as president of a Quebec shell company — First Hotels & Resorts Investments Inc. — that was part of a complex corporate web linked to a $49-million (U.S.) tax evasion scheme that landed a Miami-based father-and-son property development team in prison in 2011.

Mauricio Cohen borrowed approximately $90 million (U.S) from a French bank in the early 1990s to develop a hotel in Manhattan. But according to court findings in four different jurisdictions, he and his son, Leon Levy-Cohen, fraudulently diverted a significant amount of that money into personal accounts through a web of offshore corporations, including the Quebec company.

They are serving 10-year federal prison sentences in the U.S. for tax evasion.

Laroche, who was listed as president of the company between 2008 and 2010, was subpoenaed to provide evidence in a subsequent civil lawsuit in 2011, and explained her job:

Q. And at the time you signed this document, what did you understand your duties would be as president and secretary of the company? A. So that my name would show as president and secretary of this company. Q. And was that the only purpose? A. Yes. Q. Just to be a name? A. Yes. Q. That you would have no responsibilities, or decision-making authority in the company? A. That’s right. Q. And that you would have no control over any of the assets of the company? A. That’s right.

Asked whether the purpose of the companies was to conceal its real owner, Laroche said “Maybe.” When asked to elaborate, she said: “It’s not my business to know the purpose.”

In an interview last month, Laroche denied any responsibility for any of the company’s actions.

“It’s just a service,” Laroche said. “Companies are incorporated everyday. Some companies do things right. Some companies do things that may be reprehensible, or become so. You can’t judge in advance.”