NY Times: How The Panama Papers Changed Pakistani Politics (#PanamaPapers)

Thursday, August 3, 2017

NY Times: How The Panama Papers Changed Pakistani Politics (#PanamaPapers)

By Shuyi OeI

New York Times, How the Panama Papers Changed Pakistani Politics:

The Pakistani Supreme Court’s decision to dismiss Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was based on corruption accusations stemming from the Panama Papers, a trove of leaked documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.

The ruling is one of the most stunning outcomes of the documents’ release, which implicated dozens of politicians and powerful international figures in shady offshore business dealings. Mr. Sharif is the second world leader, along with Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, the former prime minister of Iceland, to resign as a result of the leak.

What did the Panama Papers reveal?

Mr. Sharif’s name never appears in the Panama Papers, but three of his six children – Maryam Nawaz Sharif, Hasan Nawaz Sharif and Hussain Nawaz Sharif – were determined to have purchased luxury properties in London using offshore holdings. His children have maintained that the companies were set up with legally obtained money, but critics claim otherwise.

According to detailed reports from the International Consortium for Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), who first released the Panama Papers in early 2016 after a yearlong investigation, Mr. Sharif’s three children headed companies that owned four luxury flats in London’s Park Lane neighborhood.

His daughter Maryam, once seen as his likely political successor, was listed as the owner of two British Virgin Islands-based shell companies – Nielsen Enterprises Limited and Nescoll Limited – which were set up in the early 1990s, just after her father’s first term as prime minister ended. She was underage at the time. The companies owned “a U.K. property each” for use by the family of the owners, according to the documents.

Maryam and Hasan Nawaz Sharif signed paperwork in 2007 that was part of a series of transactions in which Deutsche Bank Geneva lent up to $13.8 million to the companies with their London properties as collateral. Hasan Nawaz Sharif was listed as the director of another British Virgin Islands registered company, Hangon Property Holdings Limited.

Another shareholder of that company transferred shares to him for about $11.2 million, according to the documents.

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2017/08/ny-times-how-the-panama-papers-changed-pakistani-politics-panamapapers.html