Dubai Unlocked: A report has revealed how Dubai’s property market is being used to hide ill-gotten money around the world. The report, titled ‘How Dirty Money Finds a Home in Dubai Real Estate,’ was compiled by journalists from 74 different organizations in 58 countries after more than six months of research and takes into account real estate assets up to the spring of 2022.
The report, prepared after an analysis of real estate data collected from the Dubai Land Department and public utility companies, highlights the significant participation of Pakistanis, including former president Pervez Musharraf and current president Asif Ali Zardari, as owners of the property.
Indian owners top the list, while Pakistanis are the second nationality to own property in Dubai, with a combined value of $11 billion. 17,000 Pakistanis own 23,000 properties in the region, illustrating the magnitude of their presence.
More than 300 Malaysians are listed as property owners in Dubai and they collectively own over 500 properties in the city.
This includes properties in the tallest structure in the world, the Burj Khalifa, alongside Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty and British stars David and Victoria Beckham.
At least six properties linked to Malaysia are also located on the famous Palm Jumeirah, where the Beckhams and actor Shah Rukh Khan own holiday homes.
Malaysiakini said in its report that checks revealed that most of the notable persons were high-profile businessmen, while no well-known politician or his associates were found on the list.
Of the 500 properties linked to Malaysians, more than 300 are classified as residential properties by economists at the EU Tax Observatory and Norway’s Centre for Tax Research, who worked on the leaked data separately.
Economists at the EU Tax Observatory and the Norwegian Tax Research Centre, who separately processed the leaked data, classified more than 300 of the 500 properties linked to Malaysians as residential properties.
From this, economists estimated that Malaysian residential properties found in the leaked data would be worth US$160.9 million (RM710 million) in 2022.
Also taking into account other properties not included in the leaked data, economists estimate that Malaysian-owned residential properties across the city are worth a total of US$320 million (RM1.5 billion).
They arrived at this estimate by complementing the leaked data with a variety of confidential and open sources.
What is Dubai Unlocked?
Dubai Unlocked is an international investigation of property owners in Dubai. With its chic beach clubs, world-class shopping and ultra-modern skyline, the Gulf city is known as the playground of the rich and famous from belonging to different parts of the world.
However, slippery regulations have also turned the real estate market into a magnet for another class of global elites: suspected criminals, politicians, fugitives and sanctioned individuals seeking to hide their money abroad.
Dubai Unlocked is a collaboration of more than 70 media organisations, revealing who owns what in the Middle East financial hub and how the city opened its doors to hundreds of people accused of crimes around the world.
What Makes Dubai Unlocked different from other investigations?
For years, Dubai has been considered a prime destination for laundering illicit funds, especially through its real estate market.
While other investigations have focused on land ownership of people in specific regions and countries, Dubai Unlocked is the first project of its kind to examine property ownership in the city on a global scale. It’s also based on more recent data, thanks to a new batch of leaked real estate records, mostly from 2022 and 2020.
Journalists have identified numerous owners in Dubai who are in the public interest to report on, from alleged money launderers and drug traffickers to politicians accused of corruption and businessmen sanctioned for financing terrorism.
