Pandora Papers: PM Imran Khan promised ‘new Pakistan’ however members of his inside circle secretly moved hundreds of thousands offshore

By Margot Gibbs and Malia Politzer
In 2018, Imran Khan, the Pakistani cricketing legend turned anti-corruption campaigner lastly broke by way of.
After greater than 20 years within the political wilderness, the charismatic Oxford-educated media star seized on the publication of the Panama Papers, the 2016 journalistic exposé that exposed the offshore secrets and techniques of the worldwide elite. Among the findings: The youngsters of Pakistan’s sitting prime minister secretly owned a string of luxurious London flats.

Riding a wave of public outrage, Khan led protests across the nation and a sit-in on the residence of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, demanding that he step down. With the help of the navy institution, Khan propelled his reformist social gathering, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), or Pakistan Movement for Justice, previous its rivals within the 2018 nationwide elections and propelled himself into the prime minister’s workplace in Islamabad.
In a televised victory speech, Khan promised a brand new period.
“We will establish supremacy of the law,” he mentioned. “Whoever violates the law, we will act against them. Our state institutions will be so strong that they will stop corruption. Accountability will start with me, then my ministers, and then it will go from there.”

Now leaked paperwork reveal that key members of Khan’s inside circle, together with cabinet ministers, their households and main monetary backers have secretly owned an array of corporations and trusts holding hundreds of thousands of {dollars} of hidden wealth. Military leaders have been implicated as properly. The paperwork comprise no suggestion that Khan himself owns offshore corporations.
Among these whose holdings have been uncovered are Khan’s finance minister, Shaukat Fayaz Ahmed Tarin, and his household, and the son of Khan’s former adviser for finance and income, Waqar Masood Khan. The information additionally reveal the offshore dealings of a high PTI donor, Arif Naqvi, who’s dealing with fraud costs within the United States.
The information present how Chaudhry Moonis Elahi, a key political ally of Imran Khan’s, deliberate to place the proceeds from an allegedly corrupt enterprise deal right into a secret belief, concealing them from Pakistan’s tax authorities. Elahi didn’t reply to ICIJ’s repeated requests for remark. Today, a household spokesman informed ICIJ’s media companions that, “due to political victimisation misleading interpretations and data have been circulated in files for nefarious reasons.” He added that the household’s property “are declared as per applicable law”.
In one among a number of offshore holdings involving navy leaders and their households, a luxurious London condo was transferred from the son of a well-known Indian film director to the spouse of a three-star normal. The normal informed ICIJ the property buy was disclosed and correct; his spouse didn’t reply.
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The revelations are a part of the Pandora Papers, a brand new international investigation into the shadowy offshore monetary system that permits multinational companies, the wealthy, well-known and highly effective to keep away from taxes and in any other case protect their wealth. The probe relies on greater than 11.9 million confidential information from 14 offshore companies corporations leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and shared with 150 information organizations all over the world.
The window into the private funds of particular person Pakistani generals is very uncommon and supplies a glimpse at how high navy officers – recognized in Pakistan as “The Establishment” – use offshore to quietly enrich themselves whereas sustaining, till now, the navy’s picture as a bulwark towards civilian corruption.
In the 48 hours main as much as the publication of the Pandora Papers, a Pakistani tv station, ARY-News, reported that, “the owner of two offshore companies registered at a similar address as of Prime Minister Imran Khan has revealed that they were registered by him on a different address and denied any role of the premier in this regard.” The story additionally attributed the knowledge to “a database of the offshore companies.”
ARY-News shouldn’t be an ICIJ companion and doesn’t have entry to ICIJ information.

In its reporting previous to publication, ICIJ had requested Khan about the identical corporations. A Khan spokesman informed ICIJ that the prime minister had no hyperlink to both, including that two homes in the identical neighborhood share an handle, offering a map as proof.
The spokesman additionally informed ARY-News that Khan denied any connection to the businesses, including that their proprietor “never met Imran Khan face to face and it may however be possible that they had attended an extended family function.”
The Pandora Papers investigation exposes civilian authorities and navy leaders who’ve been hiding huge quantities of wealth in a rustic affected by widespread poverty and tax avoidance.

The newly leaked information reveal the usage of offshore companies by Pakistan’s elites that rivals the findings of the Panama Papers, which led to Sharif’s downfall and helped propel Imran Khan to energy three years in the past.
Today, a number of hours earlier than the Pandora Papers’ publication, Khan’s spokesperson informed a press convention that the prime minister, “has no offshore company but if any of his ministers [or] advisers have it will be their individual acts and they will have to be held accountable.”
An unaccountable navy elite
Khan’s anti-corruption rhetoric resonated in Pakistan, the place the navy has pointed to what it calls the corruption and ineptitude of civilian politicians to justify overthrowing democratically elected governments thrice because the nation’s founding in 1947.
Military autocracies have dominated Pakistan for nearly half the nation’s historical past. They have been bolstered by help from the U.S and NATO nations, which have relied on Pakistan’s help as a bulwark towards the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and, later, the Taliban.
The navy additionally claims legitimacy because the nation’s protector towards longtime adversary and nuclear rival India.
Over the a long time, the navy and its secretive spy company, Inter-Services Intelligence, have repeatedly stoked anti-India animus, even at the price of angering Pakistan’s Western allies.