Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi, has denied knowledge about the involvement of Samoa’s High Commission in Australia with Mossack Fonseca.Speaking during his weekly press conference, Tuilaepa said he couldn’t comment on the issue, as he needs to understand it first.“I don’t understand it,” he said. “I need to know the context.”Tuilaepa was asked for a comment following reports that a senior government officer at Samoa’s High Commission in Australia routinely assisted Mossack Fonseca in creating shell companies.One of those shell companies later faced sanctions for supplying goods to the Syrian government and military. The details are part of the Panama Paper leak, which is making international headlines.It was not possible to get a comment from the Governor of the Central Bank of Samoa, Maiava Atalina Ainu’u Enari.Questions sent to her email as the head of Samoa’s Money Laundering Prevention Authority were not responded to at press time.According to the Panama Papers, however, Mossack Fonseca’s Samoan office appears to have been using the Samoan High Commission in Canberra to assist it in forwarding documents for the creation of shell companies to other countries, such as the United Arab Emirates and Uruguay.The Samoan High Commissioner was reported to have initially said in a statement she was not aware of any instances where documents had been received from Mossack Fonseca for legalisation, but later clarified and said some documents had been forwarded for processing only to foreign authorities.One email from Mossack Fonseca’s Samoan office, dated 16 April 2013, details the process of sending documents from Samoa to Australia and then to the UAE.“We had forwarded on 15 March 2013 to the Samoa high commission a Certificate of Good Standing for the above company for authentication by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and then to be forwarded to the UAE embassy for further endorsement,” a Mossack Fonseca employee wrote. Last month, Samoa’s Money Laundering Prevention Authority issued a warning to professional money launderers and international money launderers who may be using Samoa as a stage in their dealings.