DHAKA: The names of BNP leader Abdul Awal Mintoo, his wife and three sons including Tabith Mohammed Awal appeared in Paradise Papers, a massive document leak reveals secrets of world elites’ hidden wealth.

Their names surfaced as shareholders of NFM Energy Ltd — a gas drilling exploration company.

The Paradise Papers is a set of 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investments that were leaked to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.

However, the whistleblower Paradise Papers stated that Mintoo, his wife Nasreen Fatema Awal, and three sons--Tabith Mohammed Awal, Tafsir Mohammed Awal and Tajwar Muhammed Awal are shareholders and held top positions of the offshore company registered in Bermuda since 1999.  

Paradise Papers is going into a large database that also contains records from the previous leaks shepherded by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), including last year's Panama Papers and the huge 2013 cache of offshore financial records. 

As in the past, actual documents — emails, bank statements, copies of passports, internal corporate memos, people's phone numbers — will be withheld and only available to the ICIJ's partner journalists.

The public will get a glimpse at the tens of thousands of names including those of more than 3,000 Canadians and Canadian companies in the Paradise Papers, reports The Guardian Friday (November 17). 

BDST: 1320 HRS, NOV 18, 2017
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