The Pandora Papers investigation has proved to be the world’s largest-ever journalistic investigation, involving more than 600 independent and associated journalists from 150 media outlets across 117 countries round the globe.
The very investigation is based on a stack of confidential records of 14 offshore service providers of professional services to rich individuals and corporations seeking to incorporative off-shore or shell companies, trusts, NGOs, foundations, welfare organizations and other governing and non governing entities in low- or no-tax jurisdictions. The entities empowers the respective owners and founders not to disclose their identities from the public and sometimes from regulators as well. Usually, the service providers help them open bank accounts in countries with light financial regulation or less approach of financial watchdogs.
The 2.94 terabytes of data, leaked to ICIJ and shared with media partners around the world, arrived in various formats: as documents, images, emails, spreadsheets, and more.
Furthermore, more than 330 politicians have been exposed by the leak. They used entities in secrecy jurisdictions in order to hide their original identities to buy real estate, hold money in trust, own other companies and other assets, sometimes anonymously. that too holding key positions in government and various organizations.
Spreadsheets made up 4% of the documents, or more than 467,000. The records also included slide shows and audio and video files. The Pandora Papers, an investigation revealing financial secrets held by high-profile individuals across the world, includes the names of more than 700 Pakistanis that has been disclosed on Sunday evening.
Most prominently these include Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin, Minister for Water Resources Moonis Elahi, Senator Faisal Vawda, Ishaq Dar’s son, PPP’s Sharjeel Memon, the family of Minister for Industries and Production Khusro Bakhtiar, PTI leader Abdul Aleem Khan, among others, with alleged and documented links to offshore companies.
Some retired army officials, businessmen including Axact’s CEO Shoaib Sheikh and media company owners, have also been named in the leaks.
The Pandora Papers investigation further reveals how banks and law firms work closely with offshore service providing companies to design complex corporate structures to evade tax and financial watchdogs. The files show that providers don’t always or usually get to know about their customers, despite their legal obligation to take care not to do business with people who engage in questionable business deals.
The investigation also reports on how US trust providers have been taking advantage of some states’ laws that promote secrecy and help wealthy overseas clients hide wealth to avoid taxes in their home countries.
The 11.9 million-plus records worth 2.94 terabytes of data has been largely surfaced . More than 6.4 million of the files were text documents, including more than 4 million PDFs, some of which ran to more than 10,000-pages. The documents include passports, bank statements, tax declarations, company incorporation records, real estate contracts and due diligence questionnaires. There were also more than 4.1 million images and emails in the leak.
At the time of investigation, a collaboration of focused journalists have collected and covered every word contained in the documents, checked the background of the people listed, their dealings in Pakistan and abroad. One of the statements of Pakistani journalist who was an official part of the investigation stated that they have tried their best for there to be no injustice no case of mistaken identity
Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Lahore residence, 2 Zaman Park. International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the non-profit newsroom and journalist network based in Washington DC which organised the investigation, sent questions to the PM’s spokesperson, in this regard.
Speaking of the matter of declaring offshore companies. It is revealed that whether it is a public office holder, or an ordinary citizen, offshore companies do need to be declared while filing tax returns and must also be declared to the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan. In the following context the accused figures can be taken to the court by the government or relevant authorities.
An added responsibility on politicians is that they have to declare their assets to the Election Commission of Pakistan, so they must declare it there as well.
Most number of such companies can be found in the British Virgin Islands. While something new that emerged in the Pandora Papers investigation was that the US is also a major offshore jurisdiction. In ICIJ documents it was revealed that laws differ across states, but generally, if someone wishes to incorporate an offshore company in the US and transfer money to it, it is not that difficult.
It was learnt that it includes the names of the children of the then prime minister, and it was argued that all action must begin with them. Not to fNAB began looking into the assets of family members of Khusro Bakhtiar but not much has come of it, with only low-level arrests being made.
By comparison, for the Panama Papers, almost 400 journalists from 80 countries participated in the investigation.
The Pandora Papers leak uncovers financial secrets of more leaders and public officials than the Panama Papers did and provide more than twice as much information about the ownership of offshore companies. The Panama Papers were based on the data of a Panama-based law firm called Mossack Fonseca that revealed offshore holdings of 140 politicians, public offshore and sports stars. Those documents were obtained by the German newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, which contained records dating back 40 years. By comparison, the Pandora Papers investigation is bigger in size and revelations about politicians and public officials are also far more than what previously came to public attention. From Pakistan, there were more than 400 individuals who surfaced in the Panama Papers.