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Home Secretary Amber Rudd linked to offshore companies in Bahamas

After the names of 259 Pakistanis with links to offshore companies surfaced in the Panama Papers in May, a new set of leaked documents has emerged carrying the names of 150 nationals who own companies in the Bahamas.

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Some prominent names included Raza, Hasnain, Rafique, Hyder, Imran, Aun and Sajjad of a single business family which has six offshore companies on Bahamas Leaks.

UBS and Credit Suisse came second and third in a ranking of institutions setting up the most offshore companies for clients.

The data came from almost four decades of digital archives of one Panamanian law firm specialised in creating and running offshore entities, Mossack Fonseca, which says its computer records were hacked from overseas.

The information has been shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and originally obtained and released by German newspaper Sddeutsche Zeitung.

Overall the data provides names of politicians and others linked to more than 175,000 Bahamian companies registered between 1990 and 2016, writes ICIJ. The two sets of data thus intersect at several points, uncovering hidden layers of offshore secrecy.

The Tribune de Genève reported that all the Swiss banks it had contacted for comment claimed to abide by the strictest due diligence and money laundering procedures.

The explosive April 3 Panama leaks also named Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s children Maryam, Hassan and Hussain among other world leaders having offshore wealth.

Meanwhile, Mexican authorities said on Wednesday that the financial affairs of hundreds of Mexicans mentioned in the “Bahamas Leaks” cache would be checked for tax violations.

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Previously Panama Leaks had exposed 400 Pakistanis who owned offshore companies in different tax havens.

Leaked documents revealed incorporation details of 69 companies owned by Pakistani citizens