Understanding this may help resolve the cognitive dissonance that arises from reading about the Panama Papers against the insistence by Mossack Fonseca that their hands are clean. When the firm writes that “we have a strong compliance record” and “we are responsible members of the global financial and business community,” they are not lying through their teeth, as some might suspect. Keeping clients out of legal trouble is a core element of their business model: that is how they earn their money. If they, or firms like them, were to lose their reputations for keeping clients on the right side of the law, the clients would take their business elsewhere.

Some of the activity uncovered in the Panama Papers will turn out to be illegal. But if past is prologue, then the majority of what we learn from the leak will merely be embarrassing for those exposed—showing them to be opportunistic and perhaps unethical, but not criminal. And that is why many of the people named in the documents are unlikely to see the inside of a courtroom concerning the services that Mossack Fonseca provided to them: not because they have the power now to quash prosecutions (with some notable exceptions!), but because some time ago they had the power to hire expert advisers who carefully designed their tax-avoidance (or law-avoidance) strategies.

This kind of expertise is expensive, and can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, depending on which laws one wants to avoid. But paying for secrecy is typically worth it: If it weren’t for leaks like the Panama Papers, most people would have no idea that so much law avoidance is possible, let alone legally permitted. Many governments know about it, and as the Panama Papers reveal, many public officials take advantage of the benefits these firms provide.

That is one reason so many of their names appear in the leak: 140 politicians and officials from more than 50 countries. While some of those countries are known to have problems with fraud and crime by individuals in government, others are not. Iceland, France, Chile, and Botswana—all of which have officials listed as clients of Mossack Fonseca—are ranked highly on anti-corruption indexes such as the one from Transparency International. Use of offshore services by officials from those countries is unlikely to be connected to illegal activity, although it may well become a political liability for them.

That is how things shaped up for Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson, who resigned following revelations that he was once part-owner of an offshore company incorporated with the help of Mossack Fonseca. Although the firm has been wholly owned by his wife since 2009, it stands to reap millions from the deal Gunnlaugsson negotiated for claimants on Iceland’s bankrupt financial institutions. Although reports show “no evidence to suggest tax avoidance, evasion, or any dishonest financial gain on the part of Gunnlaugsson,” his mere association with Mossack Fonseca and an offshore firm was enough to cost him his job, and possibly his career.