LAHORE – Hundreds of Pakistanis, including a former military official General Akhtar Abdur Rahaman Khan, have been named among thousands from across the world in a leak from one of the world’s biggest private financial institutions, Credit Suisse, that exposed details of wealth of parked in major banks.
A leak from a leading private investment Swiss Bank Credit Suisse has unearthed the fortunes of thousands of its shady clients around the globe.
Although the swiss bank secrecy laws have protected Credit Suisse from having to disclose whether it was banking criminal activity, this massive trove was provided to Süddeutsche Zeitung, a German newspaper, by a whistle-blower and claims to have exposed the secret wealth of clients notorious for drug trafficking, money laundering and corruption.
The data include details about 18,000 accounts and 30,000 account holders, collectively holding more than $100 billion.
The leaked data unmask details about accounts that were open from the 1940s until into the 2010s, but not current operations.
Many Pakistani’s are part of the infamous list as well. To be exact, around 1,400 individuals domiciled in Pakistan are linked with around 600 accounts opened in Credit Suisse. The data also contained information on the accounts which have been closed now but remained operational in the past.
According to the New York Times, senior intelligence officials and their offspring from several countries that cooperated with the United States in the war on terrorism also had money stashed at Credit Suisse.
🇵🇰 Pakistan: An intelligence chief oversaw millions in CIA funding sent to arm Afghan mujahideen fighting the Soviets.
But as the American money flowed, Credit Suisse accounts were opened under the names of the general’s sons. These accounts went on to hold millions. pic.twitter.com/YIIU2kuaBH
— Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (@OCCRP) February 20, 2022
As the head of the Pakistani intelligence agency, General Akhtar Abdur Rahman Khan helped funnel billions of dollars in cash and other aid from the United States and other countries to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan to support their fight against the Soviet Union.
In 1985, the same year President Ronald Reagan called for more oversight of the aid going into Afghanistan, an account was opened in the name of three of General Khan’s sons. (The general never faced charges of stealing aid money.) Years later, the account would grow to hold $3.7 million, the leaked records show.
However, one of General Khan’s sons told the project’s representative that this information was “not correct” and “conjectural”.
Among the people listed as holding amounts worth millions of dollars in Credit Suisse accounts were King Abdullah II of Jordan and the two sons of the former Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak. Other account holders included Venezuelan officials ensnared in a long-running corruption scandal.
The leaked bank information included many accounts linked to government officials across the Middle East and beyond. The data raises questions about how public officials and their relatives accumulated vast fortunes in a region rife with corruption.
