A local newspaper has reported that PTI senior minister Aleem Khan together with his wife owns Hexam Investment Overseas Limited, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands for buying properties in London.
ISLAMABAD: (UrduPoint/Pakistan Point News-Oct 4th, 2021) Pakistanis are ranked fifth among those who are buying properties in London though offshore companies, an analysis of Pandora papers published by a local newspaper revealed on Monday. The report revealed that many individuals opened shell companies so that they could avoid taxes or for the other reasons they knew themselves.
British citizens, the information revealed, were at the top in buying the property but that was not surprising as they belong to the same land. Nigerians are at the second number followed by Indian citizens and Russians and then the Pakistanis who have bought the properties.
The analysis conducted by the ICIJ partners from the UK, the Guardian, BBC and Finance also showed that over a quarters of the firms are owned by the Britons. The secret documents found 681 previously anonymous beneficial owners of 1,542 UK properties purchased through 716 offshore firms. The value of these properties is estimated to be more than $5.5 billion.
It also showed that more than two-thirds of the properties are owned in London, with Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea being the most popular boroughs. Most of the properties are owned by firms incorporated in the British Virgin Islands with a handful in the Seychelles and Panama. The analysis also showed that people of different nationalities own and the number of companies they hold for buying real estate.
UK citizens top the list, whether the record is analyzed in terms of the number of companies owned for property purchases or the number of properties held through them. When it comes to Pakistanis, they stand at the fifth position in terms of companies they used for property purchases and are ranked sixth in terms of properties they purchased, the analysis revealed.
A local newspaper while quoting the analysis of Pandora Papers reported that senior Punjab Minister Abdul Aleem Khan, Arif Masood Naqvi, the founder of the fallen equity firm, the family of Lt. Gen. (retd) Shafaatullah Shah, the daughter of Lt. Gen. (retd) Habibullah Khattak, Tariq Sayeed Saigol, Sikandar Mustafa Khan and Amer Ishaq Khan are among the prominent Pakistanis who surfaced in the Pandora Papers in connection with the companies used for buying properties in the UK.
It reported that Aleem Khan, together with his wife, owns Hexam Investment Overseas Limited, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands for buying properties in London. Three properties are shown in the company’s ownership record. Arif Masood Naqvi, another financier of Imran Khan presently in a UK jail awaiting extradition to the US, holds six properties through two offshore companies: Blondell Assets Limited and Velolia Star Limited. A company, Talah Limited, belonging to Lt-Gen. (retd) Shafaatullah Shah owns one property in London.
The report revealed that the daughter of Lt-Gen (retd) Habibulah Khattak, Shahnaz, purchased two properties. One of them is in the name of Shady Tree Properties Limited and another in the name of Southwest Holdings Limited. In the Pandora Papers document, she said she inherited her fortune from her father. One woman, Saeeda Akhtar, has the highest number of properties, owned through Hilltop Supplies Limited. As many as 16 properties were found in the company’s name. Asif Hafeez, a drug smuggler, held three properties through Sarwani S.A. Hafeez lost these properties to the UK after his arrest on charges of importing heroin, the same paper reported, claiming that he owned a luxury apartment in London worth GBP2.25 million besides two farmhouses in Windsor with a combined value of around GBP6 million.
