List of more Pakistanis named in Panama Papers released

ISLAMABAD: The politico-business Saifullah family stays on the top by owning the highest number of offshore companies among Pakistanis, and British Virgin Islands emerges as the favourite destination of Pakistanis for registering companies that witnessed its peak in 2007. Also, the month of May has emerged as the favourite month for registration, data analysis of 256 companies and their 400 owners indicate.

The oldest company of any Pakistani found in record so far was registered on November 8, 1988 titled Casca Holdings S.A. owned by Sharifa Hamid, Hassan Ahmed, Sajada Jamil and Mian Ziauddin Toor. The newest company in the record has been identified as Melton Commercial Trading Limited registered on May 21, 2015 with its power of attorney granted to Waqar Siddiqui.

Karachi has the highest number of offshore company owners, followed by Lahore and then Islamabad. The list of The News is a combination of structured data compiled by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ)  in addition to the names of Pakistanis found out by this correspondent while getting deeper into the web of secrecy. In many cases, either the ownership has been kept secret or the companies have been made shareholders of other companies.

The Saifullah family owns as many as 34 companies. Among the shareholders are Senator Osman Saifullah, former federal minister Anwer Saifullah, former federal minister Saleem Saifullah, former MNA Humayun Saifullah, Javed Saifullah and Jehangir Saifullah. The family of Zulfi Bokhari has been ranked second in terms of company ownership by owning six offshore holdings. These companies are owned by Syeda Masooma Bokhari and Syeda Sakina Bokhari, the sisters of Zulfi Bokhari.

Karachi hosts the highest number of offshore companies owners in Pakistan with 153 such individuals while as many as 108 owners of offshore companies live in Lahore.The data shows that there are around 153 companies owned by Pakistanis registered in British Virgin Island while 41 companies are based in Panama. The third most favorite destination for the offshore companies is Seychelles with 34 companies. A significant number of companies are registered in Bahamas as well.

Most of these companies have been registered in the month of May. The second most favourite month for registration of such companies was July followed by April and June. The least number of companies have been registered in the month of September.

In terms of years, 2007 has been most favourite for offshore companies’ registration while 2009 remained the second most popular month in this regard. An equal number of companies (15) had been registered in the years 2000, 2011, 2012.