Pakistani nationals having more than 152,500 offshore bank accounts could have stashed away a hefty sum of USD 11 billion abroad, a “mind-boggling” amount half of which is undeclared, a top minister was quoted as saying in a media report on Tuesday.

“All of these offshore account holders are resident Pakistanis and more than half of the hard currency stashed away by them is undeclared,” he said.The minister said many of these offshore account holders did not have legitimate, documented business.”That should be enough to underscore the scale of tax evasion. We wouldn’t have to beg if we could bring this money back home,” he said.

Last week, Chairman of the FBR Jahanzeb Khan told a parliamentary panel the board had neither set any tax recovery target from the holders of these accounts nor seen any tax potential from the Panama Papers leaks.

The tax recovery target could not be given on the basis of information received about the offshore accounts because the account holders might have transferred money through legal channels or have plausible justification, he was quoted to have told the panel.

Around 400 account holders are believed to have cash of USD 1 million or above in their accounts and the FBR has so far been able to recover USD 1.2 million from one individual as tax since the OECD shared the information with the country’s top tax agency.

Azhar said the government had “deployed technology” using database of the National Database and Registration Authority, Federal Investigation Agency, State Bank of Pakistan and the FBR to profile potential taxpayers in Pakistan.

“Almost half the work is already done and by the end of April the profiling of such tax evaders will be completed,” he said.

Several years ago, former finance minister Ishaq Dar had claimed that Pakistani nationals had parked a whopping USD 200 billion in Swiss accounts, but he never disclosed the source of his information.