What are the Carolina connections in the Panama Papers?

A Wake Forest School of Medicine biomedical researcher, a husband-and-wife development team, and a retiree who ran small businesses near Pinehurst are among Carolinians whose names appear in a leaked database that has drawn global attention and now has been posted online.

Global reporting on the Panama Papers has prompted government investigations in several countries, including in the United States, where Department of Justice officials say they’re looking into possible financial wrongdoing. While much of the attention has been on world political leaders doing business with the law firm Mossack Fonseca, the leaked files also include names of people from the Carolinas who have used offshores in their personal and work lives.

Financial experts say offshore accounts and shell companies can be used to decrease tax liabilities, to invest anonymously and to conduct business internationally.

McClatchy newspapers, which owns the Charlotte Observer and the News and Observer, made multiple attempts to contact the people from the Carolinas named in the Panama Papers. All declined to comment, including:

▪ A prominent North Carolina medical school professor who set up an offshore foundation and consulting firm to make investments worldwide in “innovative biomedical technologies,” according to records leaked from Mossack Fonseca’s files. He then sought help depositing nearly $2 million in a new bank account in the Caribbean.

▪ The CEO of a real estate development firm doing business in North and South Carolina, who contacted Mossack Fonseca about offshore companies one month after he and his wife faced tax liens in Durham County. The couple told the law firm in 2010 they were looking to set up a business presence in Panama that would include real estate, boat brokerage and other ventures.

▪ A North Carolina retiree and small businessman who reached out to Mossack Fonseca with an interest in buying a home in Panama for himself and his wife.

Their interactions with Mossack Fonseca attorneys and other representatives are detailed in the more than 11.5 million leaked documents, which include emails, copies of passports, incorporation documents and financial statements.

While the leak has stirred controversy around the world, there are people in the Panama Papers who haven’t broken any laws using offshore accounts, tax experts told McClatchy.

It’s not uncommon, said Cindy Schipani, an attorney and business law expert at the University of Michigan, for Americans who want to make international investments or who plan to move abroad to use offshore accounts to access their money or to reduce their tax liability in the United States.

“It’s perfectly fine as long as you’re obeying the law,” Schipani said, adding that American companies and individuals with foreign accounts still have tax obligations in the United States. “It will be fair to be questioning (them), but I’m sure there are plenty who did this legitimately and companies who did it legitimately.”

So far, reports on the most-recognizable names in Mossack Fonesca’s files have dominated the conversation, said Richard Pomp, a Harvard-educated attorney and expert on taxation at the University of Connecticut. “We simply are having for the first time this transparent window: what wealthy people do with their money.... It’s not pretty at all,” Pomp said.

It’s the average people who use offshores in the Panama Papers who have “fallen off the radar,” he said, and they might be using them for legitimate reasons. “We shouldn’t smirch everyone.”

This week, more of those average people became part of the larger discussion about offshores. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – which has coordinated coverage of the Panama Papers for the past year – published online Monday a searchable database from the Mossack Fonseca files. The records include hundreds of Americans and more than 200,000 companies and shareholders with ties to the United States.

The leak is believed to be the largest of its kind in history. Mossack Fonseca has denied any wrongdoing.

Here’s a look at three N.C. connections in the Panama Papers:

Wake researcher eyed global investments

In the lab at the Wake Forest School of Medicine, Dr. James Yoo has built a professional reputation around cutting-edge research. He runs clinical trials, has developed a new way to help burn victims through 3-D skin printing, and he works alongside other highly respected scientists on regenerative medicine, including growing human organs for transplants.

Yoo sent paperwork to Mossack Fonseca in late 2012 and early 2013 explaining his desire to set up his own consulting group that would invest in medical technologies and take on new research agreements, according to documents surfaced in the leak.

Through Mossack Fonseca, Yoo also established a foundation listing himself and his family members as beneficiaries. The foundation, called Delta Life Global Foundation, was set up in October 2012, according to Mossack Fonseca records.

The foundation is linked to Yoo’s DLF Consulting company, with which Yoo opened an offshore bank account in St. Lucia. On the bank account application form routed through Mossack Fonseca, Yoo indicated he expected an annual turnover of between $2 to $5 million, with money sourced from consulting and biomedical technology investments, research and development.

He also signed a tax compliance form declaring, under oath, he would obey U.S. tax laws pertaining to his offshore account with Bank of Saint Lucia International.

Mossack Fonseca provided a board of directors for Yoo’s consulting company, and Yoo later inquired about another law firm service: asset management, according to email exchanges. It’s unclear from the emails, though, whether Yoo ultimately contracted with the related Mossfon Asset Management arm.

Yoo did not return emails and phone calls from McClatchy asking for comment. The media relations office for Wake Forest’s school of medicine did not respond to a request for comment this week.

At Wake Forest, Yoo is listed as the primary contact for industry and foundation officials interested in funding regenerative medical research on campus. Information available about Yoo’s work in scientific journals and other sources indicate his research has previously been sponsored by private medical technology companies – a common source of funding for research at universities worldwide.

Carolina developer considered residency visa

South Carolina-based developer Ellis Coleman contacted Mossack Fonseca in April 2010 asking about a new company and a bank account.

Over the next two years, the law firm helped Coleman and his wife, Natalie, set up up a private foundation and a company offshore, according to documents in the Panama Papers. “We have taken duly notice that your main goal is asset protection and that you are planning to make some investments in Panama..." a Mossack Fonseca official wrote in an email to Ellis Coleman after his initial inquiry.

Ellis Coleman did not respond to multiple requests to comment.

Coleman, 60, is the CEO of a development company called EYC Companies, which is based in Raleigh, N.C., and Charleston, S.C., according to one document in the data. The company has built more than 2,200 multi-unit and single-family homes throughout the Southeast. Natalie Coleman, 41, is the company’s vice president of marketing, according to the company’s web site.

The Panama Papers documents show how Mossack Fonseca helps clients set up offshore companies and accounts, and, in some cases, even assisted with travel to Panama – as was the case with the Colemans.

Email exchanges between the couple and the law firm indicate they were interested in buying a beach condo in Panama and in obtaining a residency visa available to foreigners who invest in the country.

The Colemans also asked about the tax implications of various business dealings, and in one instance, they inquired about investing in gold bullion through their Panamanian bank account. Law firm documents show one of the proposed business activities involved buying and selling boats.

According to court documents, the couple had a run-in with North Carolina tax officials in March 2010. The Department of Revenue filed liens against the Colemans in Durham County, saying they owed about $180,000 for income taxes, penalties and interest. The department later released the liens in November 2015, public records show.

Ultimately, the Colemans disbanded their offshore company, the documents show. It’s unclear whether they kept the foundation and whether they ever bought property in Panama.

Small businessman sought Panama retirement

After nearly two decades of running neighborhood businesses and buying residential property near North Carolina’s famous Pinehurst golfing community, Art Berkoski wanted to retire and buy a home in Panama with his wife.

Berkoski’s name appears in the Panama Papers because a real estate company recommended he use Mossack Fonesca to make the purchase, leaked emails show. That real estate agency, according to several email messages, earned a 10 percent commission for referrals.

Berkoski declined to comment for this article. A series of emails from 2010 between Berkoski and Mossack Fonesca employees give some details about the transaction.

Berkoski wanted to buy a house and land that was owned in four parts by four offshore corporations. He told one lawyer it was among the smoothest real estate deals he’d done – no small compliment from a businessman who bought and sold nearly a dozen home lots close to the Pinehurst and Seven Lakes golf communities, according to Moore County, N.C., public deed and mortgage records.

Because the process is different than buying land from a private seller, a Mossack Fonseca attorney advised Berkoski in an email that he needed to be the chief shareholder and owner of the four companies that controlled the real-estate assets as a “vehicle” to own the house and land. Emails indicate he wired money for the purchase. The final sale price isn’t clear.

In the database, Berkoski is listed as an inactive Mossack Fonseca client. He switched law firms several months after acquiring the property in Panama, according to emails.

Past acquaintances of Berkoski’s in North Carolina told McClatchy that Berkoski retired in Panama. His wife, Florence, died a few years ago.

Until 2006, Berkoski owned a convenience store called Art’s Deli Mart, near the Seven Lakes golf club. He also once ran an automatic car wash and self-storage business in Seven Lakes – a gated residential community with a golf course and a country club. Public records in Moore County show Berkoski invested in property around Seven Lakes Village as the area developed. From the early 1990s, he bought and sold land – sometimes at a profit.

The Mossack Fonseca emails make no mention of Berkoski using offshore accounts other than to buy a home in Panama.

Researcher Maria David and Joseph Neff and Tammy Grubb of the News & Observer, and Greg Gordon of McClatchy contributed.

This story was originally published May 12, 2016 at 6:00 AM with the headline "What are the Carolina connections in the Panama Papers?."