EVER since Panama founded its offshore banking centre in the 1970s, its governments have vowed to resist international demands for information about assets held by foreign citizens in the country. Until the global financial crisis struck in 2008, Panama faced little pressure to cough up such data, because other jurisdictions like the Cayman Islands were more popular with tax cheats. Once the OECD began cracking down on offshore tax evasion, however, and convinced many of the biggest havens to clean up their acts, Panama began to stand out for its intransigence.
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http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2010/12/panamas_finance_industry
