A global collaborative investigative journalism project has revealed the ownership of properties of the global elite in Dubai. The list includes political figures, globally sanctioned individuals, alleged money launderers and criminals. Pakistanis have also been identified on the list and their combined value has been estimated at around $11 billion.
The project — ‘Dubai Unlocked’ — is based on data that provides a detailed overview of hundreds of thousands of properties in Dubai and information about their ownership or usage, largely from 2020 and 2022. Properties purchased in the name of companies and those that are in commercial areas are not part of this analysis.
The data was obtained by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), a non-profit organization based in Washington, DC. It was then shared with Norwegian financial outlet E24 and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which coordinated a six-month investigative project with reporters from 74 media outlets in 58 countries, uncovering scores of convicted criminals, fugitives, and political figures who have recently owned at least one piece of real estate in Dubai. The News and Dawn were partners from Pakistan.
It is surprising that while there are some Pakistani families (both political and from the business world) who are widely known to have a base and family homes in Dubai but do not feature in the property leaks. This shows that the data, otherwise robust, is neither a historic account of property ownership nor is it a complete picture of all properties bought by Pakistanis there.
Among the Pakistanis listed in the Property Leaks are President Asif Ali Zardari’s three children, Hussain Nawaz Sharif, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi’s wife, Sharjeel Memon and family members, Senator Faisal Vawda, Farah Gogi, Sher Afzal Marwat, four MNAs and half a dozen MPAs from the Sindh and Balochistan assemblies. The Pakistani list also features the late Gen Pervez Musharraf, former prime minister Shaukat Aziz and more than a dozen retired generals as well as a police chief, an ambassador and a scientist – all of whom owned properties either directly or through their spouses and children.
In his social media post, Sher Afzal Marwat said he owns an apartment in Dubai, which he declared with all regulatory authorities in Pakistan six years ago.
In 2014, President Asif Ali Zardari had received foreign property as a gift. By the time he declared it in 2018, he had gifted it to someone. In 2014, a business tycoon co-accused with Zardari in the fake accounts case, Abdul Ghani Majid, declared in his wealth statement that he had granted a gift of Rs329m but neither mentioned its type nor the recipient. The JIT, however, recovered a memo about the purchase in March 2014 of a penthouse in Dubai. The Property Leaks data has now unveiled that Ghani had gifted this property to Zardari who gifted it to his daughter.PauseUnmute
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Chief Financial Officer of Omni Group Aslam Masood along with his wife is also shown as a listed owner of several properties in the data. The News checked the value of one of them and found out that it was purchased at AED1,060,626 (Rs80m) in March 2013.
Sohrab Dinshaw is also a property owner in Dubai. A villa he purchased in 2015 carried a purchase price of AED 1271888 (Rs 96m).
All of the individuals mentioned were sent questions (except Aslam Masood who is deceased). None responded.
The Altaf Khanani network, which was sanctioned by the US for involvement in money laundering, has also surfaced on the list. His son, daughter, brother, and nephew are listed owners of several properties in Dubai. Three of them are facing sanctions.
Another notable character is Hamid Mukhtar Shah, a Rawalpindi-based physician who was sanctioned by the US for his involvement in the kidnapping, detention of, and removal of kidneys from Pakistani labourers. He is listed as the owner of scores of properties.
The Property Leaks have also revealed that Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi’s wife owns property in Dubai which he didn’t declare in the nomination papers he submitted in March this year for the Senate election.
Per the Property Leaks data, Naqvi’s wife owned a five-bedroom villa in the Arabian Ranches till 2023. She received a rental income of AED600,000 (Rs45m) from this villa, which was purchased in August 2017 for AED4,347,888 (Rs329m). The villa remained in her ownership till April 2023 when it was sold for AED4,550,000 (Rs344m) per the record.
However, she continues to be the owner of a property in Dubai if Dubai’s land record is taken as a guide. Responding to questions received from the media partner of this investigative project, she clarified that she had purchased another property in Dubai in January this year when Mohsin Naqvi was still interim chief minister of Punjab. To a question regarding this, she said: “We will declare it in the current year’s tax declarations and for the ECP”.
On Tuesday, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi clarified in a tweet that: “The Dubai property bought in my wife’s name since 2017 is fully declared and listed in tax returns. It was also declared in returns submitted to the Election Commission as Caretaker CM of Punjab. The property was sold a year ago, and a new property was purchased recently with the proceeds.”
The project has also revealed that former COAS General (r.) Qamar Javed Bajwa’s son Saad Siddique Bajwa also owned a luxurious two-bedroom apartment in an upscale area of Dubai in 2020.
The leaked data shows the property was initially purchased on February 18, 2020 for AED 2.35 million. Later the property was sold on December 27, 2020. The listed price of the property mentioned in the leaked data is AED 1.75 million.
Saad Siddique Bajwa bought the property from an investment company but later transferred it to his younger brother Ali Iqbal Bajwa who is the current owner of the property.
