Imran Khan’s Toshakhana bounty worth millions: Rolex and Graff watches, cufflinks, necklace, earrings

The gifts that Imran Khan received from foreign officials as the prime minister of Pakistan have landed him into big trouble. He has been barred from contesting elections for five years for not declaring the gifts to the election commission as part of his assets and a criminal case has been registered against him for corruption.

The case against Khan is called the Toshakhana case. Toshakhana, meaning a treasury house, is a department where Pakistan’s officials are required to submit the gifts they receive from foreign officials. They can also buy these gits cheap from the Toshakhana. Imran Khan is accused of not declaring these gifts and selling them at a huge premium. A complainant had accused that Khan had “deliberately concealed his assets relating to Toshakhna gifts retained by him particularly in year 2018 and 2019… in the statements of assets and liabilities filed for the year 2017-2018 and 2018-19”.

Imran Khan had retained gifts worth more than Pakistani Rupees (PKR) 100 million by September 24, 2018, just weeks after coming to power, and paid PKR 20.1 million to keep them, according to Dawn, a Pakistani newspaper.

Along with his wife, Khan got more than 111 gifts and retained most of them, Dawn reported, citing the documents released by the government. Experts Dawn spoke to pointed out the undervaluation of the articles, whose assessed cost was kept significantly low, while the retention cost was even nominal for the undue benefit of the recipients.

In September 2018, Imran Khan retained a Graff wristwatch worth PKR 85 million, a pair of cufflinks worth PKR 5.6 million, a pen worth PKR 1.5 million and a ring worth PKR 8.75 million after paying PKR 20 million for these items, news agency ANI reported.

In October 2019, Imran Khan retained a boxed watch, assessed at PKR 1.9 million after paying PKR 935,000. In September 2020, he kept another Rolex watch, assessed at PKR 4.4 million after paying a sum of PKR 2.4 million for the watch and a number of other gifts.In the same month, Imran Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi kept a necklace worth PKR 10 million, a bracelet worth PKR 2.4 million, a ring worth PKR 2.8 million, and a pair of earrings worth PKR 1.85 million after paying PKR 9 million for all these gifts, ANI reported.

However, Imran Khan is not the only prime minister to have enriched himself from the Toshakhana. Most of Pakistan’s prime ministers have indulged in similar practices as the documents released by the government show.