South Asia Investor Review

Pakistanis have invested $10.6 billion in Dubai real estate, ranking them as the third largest investors in the city on the Gulf. Indian investors lead Dubai real estate investments with $29.8 billion, followed by British investors' $14.7 billion investment.  Wealth From Top 20 Countries Invested in Dubai Real Estate. Source: EU Tax Observatory With at least $146 billion in foreign wealth invested, the Dubai property market is now the world's largest offshore investment market for foreign investors. It is now twice as large as the  London real estate  market in terms of wealth invested by foreigners through shell companies. There are nearly 20,000 unique foreign owners of Dubai real estate from Pakistan, the third largest number behind almost 35,000 Indian owners and about 23,000 owners from the United Kingdom, according to the  EU Tax Observatory . Unique Entities From Top 20 Countries Owning Dubai Real Estate. Source: EU Tax Observatory The record flow of foreign w...

The latest leaks of US FinCEN (Financial Crime Enforcement Network) files show that the United Kingdom (UK) is the biggest  global center for money laundering . An earlier report issued by the British Crime Agency put Pakistan among the world's top sources of money laundering in the United Kingdom. The latest FinCEN leaks represent just the tip of an iceberg. The leaked 2,100 FinCEN files covering $2 trillion worth of transactions that ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) and Buzzfeed reporters got their hands on represent just a small sliver of the roughly 12 million SARs FinCEN has received since 2011. Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan has repeatedly raised the issue of the  West's inaction  in stopping the illicit flows of hard currencies from developing nations to the developed world. Money laundering and other financial crimes affect the economic roots of a nation like Pakistan and slow down its human and socioeconomic development. Fin...

British National Crime Agency (NCA) has identified  Pakistan , Nigeria and Russia as the top source countries for money laundering in the United Kingdom, according to  British media reports . The NCA report says the UK is a prime destination for foreign corrupt and politically exposed people (politicians and their families) to launder money. NCA Report Highlights: In its annual assessment of serious and organized crime, the NCA says: “Investment in UK property, particularly in London, continues to be an attractive mechanism to launder funds....As the UK moves towards exiting the EU in March 2019, UK-based businesses may look to increase the amount of trade they have with non-EU countries....We judge this will increase the likelihood that UK businesses will come into contact with corrupt markets, particularly in the developing world, raising the risk they will be drawn into corrupt practices.” Here are some of the key excerpts of the UK  NCA report  titled...

Pakistan's exports have declined significantly since former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's PMLN party assumed power in 2013. They are down from about $25 billion in 2013-14 to about $20 billion in 2016-17.  At the same time, the nation's imports have jumped to $47 billion during this period, widening the trade deficit to a record $27 billion. Overvaluation of the Pakistani currency and CPEC related imports are often cited as a reason for it. The other, probably more important reason, may be increasing  misinvoicing of trade  facilitated by the people in power. Trade misinvoicing is the largest component of  illicit financial outflows  from developing countries, according to Washington-based  Global Financial Integrity (GFI)  which tracks such flows. Trade Misinvoicing: Global Financial Integrity (GFI) defines trade misinvoicing as "fraudulently manipulating the price, quantity, or quality of a good or service on an invoice submitted to customs" to q...

Some have called London the "Money Laundering Capital of the World" where corrupt leaders from developing nations use looted wealth from their people to buy expensive real estate and other assets. Private individuals and businesses from poor nations also park money in the west and other off-shore tax havens to hide their incomes and assets from the tax authorities in their countries of residence. The multi-trillion dollar massive net outflow of money from the poor to the rich countries has been documented by the  US-based Global Financial Integrity (GFI) . This flow of capital has been described as "aid in reverse". It has made big headlines in Pakistan and elsewhere since the release of the Panama Papers and the Paradise Leaks which revealed true owners of offshore assets held by anonymous shell companies. Bloomberg has reported that Pakistanis alone own as much as $150 billion worth of undeclared assets offshore. Politicians Dominate Off-shore Company Owner...