ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is allegedly among some of the world’s most prominent leaders, politicians and celebrities who use tax havens to hide their wealth.
The hidden wealth of these ‘dignitaries’ has been revealed by an unprecedented leak of no less than 11.5 million documents from 2.6 terabytes of data that shows the myriad ways in which the rich can exploit secretive offshore tax regimes.
The hidden wealth of some of the world’s most prominent leaders, politicians and celebrities has been revealed by an unprecedented leak of millions of documents that show the myriad ways in which the rich can exploit secretive offshore tax regimes.
The assets of around 140 political figures – including 12 current of former heads of states – are mentioned in the revelations, according to the probe by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
The investigation yielded 11.5 million documents from around 214,000 offshore entities, the ICIJ said on its website. The leaked “Panama Papers” cover a period over almost 40 years, from 1977 until as recently as last December, and allegedly show that some companies domiciled in tax havens were being used for suspected money laundering, arms and drug deals, and tax evasion.
The leaked data from 1975 to the end of last year provides what the ICIJ described as a “never-before-seen view inside the offshore world”.
Sueddeutsche Zeitung said Sunday the amount of data it obtained is several times larger than a previous cache of offshore data published by WikiLeaks in 2013 that exposed the financial dealings of prominent individuals.
Hussain and Hasan Nawaz Sharif, and Mariam Safdar, the sons and daughter of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, had set up set up at least four offshore companies in British Virgin Islands (BVI), reported the Indian Express. The Sharif family bought six lavish properties overlooking London’s Hyde Park through these companies.
Documents reveal that the Sharif family mortgaged four of these properties to the Deutsche Bank (Suisse) SA for a loan of GBP 7 million and the Bank of Scotland part financed the purchase of two other apartments.
