Pandora Papers expose wealth of Imran Khan's allies
Revelations name more than 700 Pakistani citizens, including ministers, Khan's political allies and families of military officers. Prominent members of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan's government, donors to his party and family members of the country's powerful military generals have moved millions of dollars of wealth through offshore companies, a new investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) alleges.
Khan, who rose to power in 2018 on the back of promises to arrest Pakistan's "corrupt" political elites, was not personally named in the newly leaked documents, dubbed the Pandora Papers, which were released late on Sunday.
Two members of Khan's cabinet - Water Resources Minister Moonis Elahi and Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin were prominent in the leaks, alongside more than 700 other Pakistani citizens, including family members of several highranking military officials, donors to Khan's Pakistan Tehreeke-Insaf party and opposition political leaders' families.
The ICIJ's investigation is based on more than 11.9 million confidential files leaked from 14 offshore financial services firms. Ownership of offshore holding companies is not illegal in most countries, and does not indicate wrongdoing, but the instrument is frequently used to avoid tax liability or to maintain secrecy around large financial transactions.
Khan on Sunday said his government would "investigate all our citizens mentioned in the Pandora Papers [and] if any wrongdoing is established we will take appropriate action". The revelations about the large financial transactions of former members of Pakistan's military offer a rare glimpse into the wealth of those belonging to an institution that has ruled the country for almost half of its 74-year history.
The military is also "the largest conglomerate of business entities in Pakistan, besides being the country's biggest urban real estate developer and manager, with wide-ranging involvement in the construction of public projects", according to a 2021 United Nations report.
The ICIJ leak named five former high-ranking military officers, including a former air force chief and two lieutenant-generals in the army, as being linked to large offshore investments in property and commercial enterprises. Ministers in the crosshairs
Finance Minister Tarin has denied any wrongdoing in his being named as the director and beneficial owner of Triperna Inc, a holding company established in the Seychelles in 2014, saying that the company was to be used for an investment transaction into a bank that he owned which did not take place.
"No account was opened, no transactions were made," he told Pakistani television channel Geo News on Sunday night, following the revelations.
"Before it could happen there was a bomb blast in Karachi, and Tariq bin Laden [the potential investor, a Saudi national] became disinterested in our bank."
Tarin said the company never held any assets and was closed soon thereafter. The case of Moonis Elahi, Pakistan's current water resources minister, appears to be more complicated, with the ICIJ investigation alleging Elahi sought to invest $5.6m from an alleged loan scandal into a trust through international financial services provider Asiaciti Trust in January 2016.
Asiaciti Trust accepted Elahi as a client a month later, despite a risk assessment commissioned by the company identifying his involvement in "several corrupt land development projects" during his time as a provincial politician in Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province.
Elahi's father, Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, is one of the province's highest profile politicians, and had previously served as CM of Punjab in the military govt of Pervez Musharraf. The Elahis served as key allies of Musharraf throughout his tenure, until he resigned in 2008, and were frequently accused of involvement in multimillion-dollar corruption.
In 2007, authorities found that the Bank of Punjab, owned by the then Elahi-led provincial government, had reportedly issued $608m in unsecured loans, many to companies owned by the families or friends of political leaders or to the bank's own directors.