New names in ‘Panama Papers’
TORY DONOR, HIGH-PROFILE INDIANS AND PAKISTANI CABINET MINISTER DENY WRONGDOING
BRITAIN, India and Pakistan have said they will investigate a leak of financial documents published by news organisations that allegedly tie world leaders to concealed wealth.
The dump of more than 11.9 million records, amounting to about 2.94 terabytes of data, came five years after the leak known as the “Panama Papers” exposed how money was hidden by the wealthy in ways that law enforcement agencies could not detect.
A Tory party donor, Mohamed Amersi, is named in the latest leak that was published overnight last Suday (3). He is reported to have advised on a deal that later turned out to be a bribe for Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of the then president of Uzbekistan.
Amersi, who funded Boris Johnson’s campaign to be prime minister, denied wrongdoing.
Among 300 individuals from India also named in the records are cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar, industrialist Anil Ambani, fugitive jeweller Nirav Modi and businesswoman Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw.
The Indian Express newspaper, part of the consortium, said the documents showed that Ambani and his representatives owned at least 18 offshore companies in Jersey, the British Virgin Islands and Cyprus. Set up between 2007 and 2010, seven of these companies had borrowed and invested at least $1.3 billion (£955,460 million), the report said.
In 2020, following a dispute with three Chinese state-controlled banks, Ambani – the chairman of Reliance Group, India’s biggest conglomerate – had told a London court that his net worth was zero.
Ambani did not respond to a request seeking comment, but an unidentified lawyer, on behalf of Ambani, said: “Our client is a tax resident of India and has made disclosures to Indian authorities as required to be made in compliance with law. All required considerations were taken into account when making disclosures before the London court.
“The Reliance Group conducts business globally and for legitimate business and regulatory requirements, companies are incorporated in different jurisdictions.”
A representative for Tendulkar said the former cricket star’s investments were legitimate.
Mazumdar-Shaw said on Monday (4) the leaked documents wrongly implicated her husband’s offshore trust.
“Media stories reporting on Pandora Papers wrongly implicate my husband’s offshore trust, which is a bonafide, legitimate trust and is managed by independent trustees. No Indian resident holds “the key” to the trust as alleged in these stories,” Mazumdar-Shaw, the executive chairperson of biotechnology major Biocon, said on Twitter.
India said on Monday it would investigate cases linked to the leak, though it added that the “names of only a few Indians have appeared so far in the media”.
In New Delhi, the Ministry of Finance said, “The relevant investigative agencies would undertake investigation in these cases and appropriate action would be taken... as per law.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a Washington, DC-based network of reporters and media organisations, said the documents link about 35 current and former national leaders and more than 330 politicians and officials in 91 countries and territories to secret stores of wealth.
The UK chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said of the “Pandora papers” on Monday, “I’ve seen these overnight as well and it’s obviously tough for me to comment on them specifically, given they’ve only just emerged. Of course HMRC
will look through those to see if there’s anything we can learn.”
More than 700 Pakistanis, including several members of prime minister Imran Khan’s cabinet, are named in the records, Pakistani partners of the ICIJ said.
Pakistan’s finance minister Shaukat Tarin said officials named in the documents would be investigated – including himself – but denied wrongdoing.
According to the files, Tarin and members of his family own four offshore firms.
Tariq Fawad Malik, a financial consultant who handled the paperwork on the companies, said they were set up as part of the Tarin family’s intended investment in a bank with a Saudi business. The deal did not proceed.
“If any wrongdoing is established we will take appropriate action,” Khan said on Twitter.
A spokeswoman for the main opposition Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) party of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif said Khan had to remove all of those identified in the files, and they should face investigation.
“Imran Khan is bound to direct all his ministers and aides named in Pandora leaks to resign with immediate effect,” Maryam Aurangzeb, the PML-N spokeswoman, said.
The Supreme Court sacked Sharif as prime minister in 2017 on corruption charges after his family’s London properties came to light in an earlier leak of the Panama Papers. Sharif, who lives in self-exile, denied wrongdoing.
In other revelations from the ICIJ investigation, former British prime minister Tony Blair is shown to have legally avoided paying stamp duty on a London property by buying the offshore company that owned it.
In addition, Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta is alleged to secretly own a network of offshore companies. (Agencies)