Renowned journalist and editor of Pakistan Today, the late Arif Nizami was also among those who had their names in the report. …reports Asian Lite News
More Pakistani individuals ranging from media group owners to family members of army personnel to businessmen and executives were identified in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ (ICIJ) Pandora Papers — a major international research into the financial holdings of high-profile individuals around the world, Dawn reported.
The exposé was unveiled on Sunday and some of the names already reported include prominent figures from the PTI-led government including Pakistan Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin and Senator Faisal Vawda.
A report by The News published on Monday said Jang group editor-in-chief Mir Shakilur Rehman, Dawn CEO Hameed Haroon and Express Media Group CEO Sultan Ali Lakhani also owned offshore companies.
Renowned journalist and editor of Pakistan Today, the late Arif Nizami was also among those who had their names in the report. He owned New Mile Production Limited in BVI that was incorporated in July 2000 with him and his wife declared as its beneficial owners.
The report by The News identified more former military leaders and their family members named in the Pandora Papers.
According to the report, the son-in-law of former Punjab governor Lt Gen (retd) Khalid Maqbool, Ahsan Latif, owned an offshore company Dylan Capital Limited that was registered in the BVI jurisdiction.
It added that according to the documents, the company was incorporated for “investment holding for certain properties in the UK and the UAE, but it was used for importing LPG (liquid petroleum gas) from Russia’s Vacus Oil Company Ltd”.
Zahra Tanvir, the wife of Lt Gen (retd) Tanvir Tahir, was also identified by the report as owning an offshore company, Ener Plastic Limited, in the BVI jurisdiction.
Javed Afridi, owner of the Peshawar Zalmi franchise, also owns three offshore companies according to revelations from the Pandora Papers: Old Trafford Properties Ltd, Sutton Gas Works Properties Ltd and Gas Works Property Ltd.
According to the report, National Bank President Arif Usmani incorporated a company, Sasa Partners Inc, in the BVI offshore tax havens in March 2018. It added that the Pandora Papers revealed him to be the company’s beneficial owner where he kept bankable assets.
The report also identified the managing director of National Investment Trust, Adnan Afridi, as having registered an offshore company, Veritas Advisory Services Ltd, in the BVI jurisdiction in October 2011.
Tendulkar’s attorney said the cricket player’s investment is legitimate and has been declared to tax authorities, reports Asian Lite News
Millions of leaked documents dubbed the Pandora Papers and a worldwide journalistic partnership on Sunday claims to have uncovered financial secrets of current and former world leaders, politicians and public officials in 91 countries and territories, including India.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which involved the BBC and ‘The Guardian’ newspaper in the U.K. and ‘The Indian Express’ in India among 150 media outlets in its investigation, claims it obtained the trove of more than 11.9 million confidential files to find secret financial dealings of many super rich.
“People linked by the secret documents to offshore assets include India’s cricket superstar Sachin Tendulkar, pop music diva Shakira, supermodel Claudia Schiffer and an Italian mobster known as ‘Lell the Fat One’,” says the ICIJ in its report.
“Tendulkar’s attorney said the cricket player’s investment is legitimate and has been declared to tax authorities. Shakira’s attorney said the singer declared her companies, which the attorney said do not provide tax advantages. Schiffer’s representatives said the supermodel correctly pays her taxes in the U.K., where she lives,” it notes.
On a world map highlighting the number of politicians linked with offshore dealings, India is shown as having six and Pakistan seven.
“ICIJ’s latest investigation, the Pandora Papers, brings renewed attention to the use of offshore companies by Pakistani political players. This time, the offshore holdings of people close to (Prime Minister Imran) Khan are being disclosed, including his Finance Minister and a top financial backer,” the findings claim.
A spokesperson for Khan told a press conference that if any of his ministers or advisors had offshore companies, “they will have to be held accountable”.
According to the ICIJ, its secret documents expose offshore dealings of the likes of the King of Jordan, the presidents of Ukraine, Kenya and Ecuador, the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic and former British prime minister Tony Blair. The files also reveal financial activities of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “unofficial minister of propaganda” and more than 130 billionaires from Russia, the U.S., Turkey and other nations.
The ICIJ says the leaked records come from 14 offshore services firms from around the world that set up shell companies and other offshore nooks for clients often seeking to keep their financial activities in the shadows.
It says the global investigation provides an “unequalled perspective” on how the rule of law has been “bent and broken” around the world by a system of financial secrecy enabled by wealthy nations.
“The findings by ICIJ and its media partners spotlight how deeply secretive finance has infiltrated global politics – and offer insights into why governments and global organisations have made little headway in ending offshore financial abuses,” it notes.
The ICIJ analysis of the secret documents identified 956 companies in offshore havens tied to 336 high-level politicians and public officials, including country leaders, cabinet ministers, ambassadors and others.
According to the ICIJ report, Pakistan’s civilian government and military leaders have been hiding vast amounts of wealth in a country plagued by widespread poverty and tax avoidance…reports Asian Lite News.
The release of Pandora Papers containing names of the close associates of Imran Khan has ruffled Pakistani politics and sparked calls for the resignation of the Pakistani Prime Minister.
The news published documents has revealed names of 700 Pakistani individuals and members of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s cabinet, inner circle, including cabinet ministers, their families, who have secretly owned an array of companies holding millions of dollars of hidden wealth, according to International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
Among those whose holdings have been exposed are Khan’s finance minister, Shaukat Fayaz Ahmed Tarin, and his family, and the son of Khan’s former adviser for finance and revenue, Waqar Masood Khan. The records also reveal the offshore dealings of a top PTI donor, Arif Naqvi, who is facing fraud charges in the US, ICIJ said.
Members of Opposition’s Pakistan Muslim League party called for Imran Khan’s resignation on Sunday following the publication of the Pandora Papers. Forced on the back foot, Imran Khan on Sunday said on Twitter that his government will probe all citizens mentioned in the Pandora Papers.
“My govt will investigate all our citizens mentioned in the Pandora Papers & if any wrongdoing is established we will take appropriate action. I call on the international community to treat this grave injustice as similar to the climate change crisis,” Khan tweeted.
According to the ICIJ report, Pakistan’s civilian government and military leaders have been hiding vast amounts of wealth in a country plagued by widespread poverty and tax avoidance.
ICIJ said Pakistan’s elites use of offshore services that rival the findings of the Panama Papers, which led to Sharif’s downfall and helped propel Imran Khan to power three years ago.
The revelations are part of the Pandora Papers, a new global investigation into the shadowy offshore financial system that allows multinational corporations, the rich, famous and powerful to avoid taxes and otherwise shield their wealth.
The probe is based on more than 11.9 million confidential files from 14 offshore services firms leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and shared with 150 news organisations around the world, according to ICIJ.
The document has revealed many key military leaders of Pakistan and intergenerational wealth transfer. The findings offer a portrait of an unaccountable military elite with extensive personal and family offshore holdings.
Pakistan Prime Minister is surrounded by people – cabinet ministers and their families, donors and other political allies – who have holdings hidden offshore, according to ICIJ.
Pakistan’s Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin and some members of his family own four offshore companies. Omer Bakhtyar, the brother of Khan’s minister for industries, Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar, transferred a USD 1 million apartment in the Chelsea area of London to his elderly mother through an offshore company in 2018.
Faisal Vawda, Khan’s former minister for water resources set up an offshore company in 2012 to invest in UK properties. He resigned in March amid a controversy over his status as a dual US-Pakistan national. The financial backers of Imran Khan are prominent in leaked documents, according to ICIJ. (ANI)
AMorgan Stanley spokesperson said: “We do not create offshore companies…. This process is independent of the firm and at the discretion and direction of the client.” …reports Asian Lite News.
Millions of leaked documents have uncovered financial secrets of 35 current and former world leaders, more than 330 politicians and public officials in 91 countries and territories, and a global lineup of fugitives, con artists and murderers, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) said.
The secret documents expose offshore dealings of the King of Jordan, the presidents of Ukraine, Kenya and Ecuador, the prime minister of the Czech Republic and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The files also detail financial activities of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “unofficial minister of propaganda” and more than 130 billionaires from Russia, the United States, Turkey and other nations.
The leaked records reveal that many of the power players who could help bring an end to the offshore system instead benefit from it — stashing assets in covert companies and trusts while their governments do little to slow a global stream of illicit money that enriches criminals and impoverishes nations.
Among the hidden treasures revealed in the documents:
A $22 million chateau in the French Riviera — replete with a cinema and two swimming pools — purchased through offshore companies by the Czech Republic’s populist prime minister, a billionaire who has railed against the corruption of economic and political elites.
More than $13 million tucked in a secrecy-shaded trust in the Great Plains of the United States by a scion of one of Guatemala’s most powerful families, a dynasty that controls a soap and lipsticks conglomerate that’s been accused of harming workers and the earth.
Three beachfront mansions in Malibu purchased through three offshore companies for $68 million by the King of Jordan in the years after Jordanians filled the streets during Arab Spring to protest joblessness and corruption.
The secret records are known as the Pandora Papers.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists obtained the trove of more than 11.9 million confidential files and led a team of more than 600 journalists from 150 news outlets that spent two years sifting through them, tracking down hard-to-find sources and digging into court records and other public documents from dozens of countries.
The leaked records come from 14 offshore services firms from around the world that set up shell companies and other offshore nooks for clients often seeking to keep their financial activities in the shadows. The records include information about the dealings of nearly three times as many current and former country leaders as any previous leak of documents from offshore havens.
In an era of widening authoritarianism and inequality, the Pandora Papers investigation provides an unequaled perspective on how money and power operate in the 21st century — and how the rule of law has been bent and broken around the world by a system of financial secrecy enabled by the US and other wealthy nations.
The findings by ICIJ and its media partners spotlight how deeply secretive finance has infiltrated global politics — and offer insights into why governments and global organizations have made little headway in ending offshore financial abuses.
An ICIJ analysis of the secret documents identified 956 companies in offshore havens tied to 336 high-level politicians and public officials, including country leaders, cabinet ministers, ambassadors and others. More than two-thirds of those companies were set up in the British Virgin Islands, a jurisdiction long known as a key cog in the offshore system.
At least $11.3 trillion is held “offshore”, according to a 2020 study by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Because of the complexity and secrecy of the offshore system, it’s not possible to know how much of that wealth is tied to tax evasion and other crimes and how much of it involves funds that come from legitimate sources and have been reported to proper authorities.
Pandora Papers (ANI)
A document in the Pandora Papers shows that banks around the world helped their customers set up at least 3,926 offshore companies with the assistance of Aleman, Cordero, Galindo & Lee, a Panamanian law firm led by a former ambassador to the US. The document shows that the firm — also known as Alcogal — set up at least 312 companies in the British Virgin Islands for clients of the American financial services giant Morgan Stanley.
A Morgan Stanley spokesperson said: “We do not create offshore companies…. This process is independent of the firm and at the discretion and direction of the client.”
The Pandora Papers investigation also highlights how Baker McKenzie, the largest law firm in the US, helped create the modern offshore system and continues to be a mainstay of this shadow economy.
Baker McKenzie and its global affiliates have used their lobbying and legislation-drafting know-how to shape financial laws around the world. They have also profited from work done for people tied to fraud and corruption, reporting by ICIJ has found.
The people that the firm has done work for includes Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, who US authorities allege laundered $5.5 billion through a tangle of shell companies, purchasing factories and commercial properties across the US heartland.
Baker McKenzie also did work for Jho Low, a now-fugitive financier accused by authorities in multiple countries of masterminding the embezzlement of more than $4.5 billion from a Malaysian economic development fund known as 1MDB. ICIJ’s reporting found that Low relied on Baker McKenzie and its affiliates to help him and his associates build a web of companies in Malaysia and Hong Kong. US authorities allege they used some of those companies to shift money looted from 1MDB.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpNUpC-Hmz4
The Pandora Papers investigation is larger and more global than even ICIJ’s landmark Panama Papers, which rocked the world in 2016, spawning police raids and new laws in dozens of countries and the fall of prime ministers in Iceland and Pakistan.
The Panama Papers came from the files of a single offshore services provider — the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. The Pandora Papers shine a light on a far wider cross-section of the lawyers and middlemen who are at the heart of the offshore industry.
The Pandora Papers provide more than twice as much information about the ownership of offshore companies. In all, the new leak of documents reveals the real owners of more than 29,000 offshore companies. The owners come from more than 200 countries and territories, with the largest contingents from Russia, the UK, Argentina and China.
