Pakistan PM will Try to Retrieve Looted Wealth Hidden Abroad

Pakistan’s new­ly elect­ed prime min­is­ter told British author­i­ties last week that he will try to retrieve wealth cor­rupt Pakistani politi­cians have loot­ed and trans­ferred to the UK.

Imran Khan By Stephan Röhl (CC BY-SA 2.0) Imran Khan is a for­mer inter­na­tion­al crick­eter who turned into a politi­cian and won the July 25 elec­tion after promis­ing to end cor­rup­tion in the gov­ern­ment. He pledged to push for probes into the wealth of Pakistan’s rich and pow­er­ful elite.

Khan told UK Ambassador to Pakistan Thomas Drew that his par­ty, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, wants to bring mon­ey loot­ed from Pakistan’s pub­lic insti­tu­tions and hid­den in the UK back to Pakistan.

A new anti-cor­rup­tion leg­is­la­tion in the U.K. may be of help as it forces peo­ple own­ing prop­er­ty worth more than £50,000 (US$70,000) and who have sus­pect­ed links to orga­nized crime or are vul­ner­a­ble to graft as a result of their polit­i­cal posi­tion to explain where they got their mon­ey from.

Even before elec­tions, Khan’s PTI par­ty ini­ti­at­ed anti-cor­rup­tion probes and one of them result­ed in the oust­ing of for­mer prime min­is­ter Nawaz Sharif and his sub­se­quent con­vic­tion. Authorities fol­lowed leads from the Panama Papers leaks and found that Sharif and his fam­i­ly had off­shore com­pa­nies and lux­u­ry flats in London that are worth near­ly US$10 mil­lion. The fam­i­ly could not explain where they got that mon­ey from.

Khan will for­mal­ly request the laun­dered mon­ey to be returned to Pakistan after he for­mal­ly takes his post in the com­ing weeks.

“We look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to sup­port Pakistan build the demo­c­ra­t­ic, secure and pros­per­ous future its peo­ple deserve,” Ambassador Drew tweet­ed after meet­ing with Khan.

Pakistan PM will Try to Retrieve Looted Wealth Hidden Abroad