Corruption has many forms, and corrupt people come from all backgrounds of life; all of them, however, have a common tendency that they love to stash their loot and plunder in Swiss banks, away from the places of loot. After the Panama and Pandora leaks, which mainly aimed at offshore companies, another way to bury the illegal money, the revelations about the illicit money stockpiled in Swiss banks were a matter of time, thanks to the rising trend of collaborative journalism. The Suisse secrets, which unearthed the colossal $8 billion treasure trove, have been brought out by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project – a group of media people from several countries. The data first came to German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung through a whistle-blower revealing the hidden accounts of corrupt people, such as drug traffickers, money launderers, government and military managers, and so on. A few public wealth robbers include a spymaster from Yemen, the sons of the dictator of Azerbaijan, and bureaucrats from oil-rich but cash-strapped Venezuela. Just like Pandora and Panama leaks, the fresh leak is not without Pakistani barons, who dried the national wealth through corrupt power. One of the account holders in the Credit Swiss bank is a close associate of General Ziaul Haq, and a former military officer. The officer in question, Gen Akhtar Abdul Rehman, who has long been dubbed as the architect of the Fall of the Soviet Union, funneled the money to Swiss banks, originally supplied from the US for the Afghan fighters, says the New York Times. The general in question was the head of the premier intelligence agency and remained the principal architecture of the ‘Afghan Jihad’ which brought many ills to Pakistani society. The family of the late general denies the charge. Most of the funds that came for the war against the Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan came from the US and other countries.
It is said the leak may reveal the names from time to time, and many other names from Pakistan may hit the headline. Some 1,400 people associated with Pakistan are on the leaks list. The data being leaked is from 1940 to 2010. The leaked data comes from one of the several banks, notorious for storing illegal money. The leaks come to fore the question of banking laws’ violations too, every bank is responsible for the source of the money it is accepting into its accounts. Prime Minister Imran Khan has long been campaigning for the retrieval of the looted money from foreign banks. The international community must take stock of the banking affairs pertaining to the illicit flight of developing countries’ riches to developed countries’ banks. Pakistan has over five years on FATF’s grey list for its ‘flawed’ banking and monetary mechanism. Though Pakistan has reformed its mechanism as per the FATF term, it is still on the watch list, whereas Western countries, despite being caught red-handed with illegal banks, are never questioned. Double standards must not exist in the modern world.
