Using the Panama Papers to explore the financial networks of the Middle East

In what has been described as the WikiLeaks of the financial world, the release of millions of documents (known as the 'Panama Papers') have placed at the center of global media attention the elaborate ways used by some of the elite to hide their financial assets leading to serious allegation of financial corruption. In this work, we explore the information contained in these documents using social network analytics. Due to the large size of the network constructed from the Panama Papers, we limit our attention to a specific region, which is the Middle East. The analysis reveals that while the constructed network enjoys some typical characteristics, there are many interesting observations and properties worth discussing. Specifically, using the extracted network consisting of 37,442 nodes and 79,544 edges, our social network analysis finding show that, perhaps surprisingly, the nodes or the social network are not necessarily directly correlation with perceived financial influence.