Pandora Papers: Pakistan's Imran Khan Vows Probe Into Alleged Offshore Dealings of Inner Circle

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan became one of the first world leaders to react to the "Pandora Papers" on Sunday and said that Islamabad would investigate the activities of citizens mentioned in the leaked documents.

"We welcome the Pandora Papers exposing the ill-gotten wealth of elites, accumulated through tax evasion & corruption & laundered out to financial "havens". The UN SG's Panel FACTI calculated a staggering $7 trillion in stolen assets parked in largely offshore tax havens", Khan said in a series of tweets.

If unchecked, inequalities between rich & poor states will increase as poverty rises in the latter. This in turn will lead to a flood of economic migration from the poor to the rich states, causing further economic & social instability across the globe.

— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) October 3, 2021

On Sunday, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published a new "Pandora Papers" leak on the alleged involvement of a number of world leaders and other high-profile individuals in offshore schemes. The ICIJ claimed that people in Imran Khan’s inner circle, including cabinet ministers, their families and major financial backers have "secretly owned an array of companies and trusts holding millions of dollars of hidden wealth".

The ICIJ suggests that Khan’s finance minister, Shaukat Fayaz Ahmed Tarin, and his family, and the son of the prime minister's ex-adviser for finance and revenue, Waqar Masood Khan, are among those whose holdings have ostensibly been exposed.

"The records also reveal the offshore dealings of a top PTI donor, Arif Naqvi, who is facing fraud charges in the United States", the ICIJ wrote.

According to the investigation, military leaders have been implicated as well. There is no information about the involvement of the head of government himself.