BBC :
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has said his government will investigate citizens linked to a massive leak on hidden global wealth.
The Pandora Papers link hundreds of Pakistanis, including members of Mr Khan’s cabinet, to wealth secretly moved through offshore companies.
They rank among history’s biggest financial leaks, exposing dealings of global business and political figures.Mr Khan said he would take action if any wrongdoing was established.
According to Pakistani media reports, more than 700 people in the country were named in the papers, among them two members of the cabinet.
Mr Khan said in a Twitter post on Monday that he “welcomed” the revelations in the papers. In 2016, before becoming prime minister, he spearheaded opposition demands to open an enquiry after offshore interests of the country’s elite were exposed in a previous leak, the Panama papers.
Meanwhile, Russia has dismissed revelations leaked in the Pandora Papers as “unsubstantiated claims” after an investigation by a media consortium shone a light on wealth allegedly amassed by Kremlin-linked individuals, reports news agencies.
The Pandora Papers investigation, involving some 600 journalists from media including The Washington Post, the BBC and The Guardian, is based on a leak of 11.9 million documents from 14 financial services companies around the world. The files were leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and published on Sunday.
Putin is not directly named, but he is linked via associates to secret assets in Monaco, notably a waterfront home acquired by a Russian woman reported to have had a child with the Russian leader.
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday slammed the leaks as “just a set of largely unsubstantiated claims”. “We didn’t see anything on hidden wealth within Putin’s inner circle,” Peskov said, adding it was not clear “how this information can be trusted”.
The leaks reveal that the $4m Monaco property was purchased through an offshore company towards the end of 2003 for the woman – a native of Putin’s hometown Saint Petersburg – who was previously reported to have had a relationship with Putin.
“If there are serious publications, that are based on something concrete and refer to something specific, then we will read them with interest,” said Peskov.
