Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori on Thursday repeated his denial that he has secret bank accounts "anywhere in the world."

In a statement released both on his Web site and by his Lima public relations office, "Fujipress," the disgraced head of State, now exiled in Japan, said that "in an act of desperation" his enemies had hired the US firm, Kroll Associates, to investigate whether he owned bank accounts outside Peru.

According to Fujimori, the present Peruvian government was forced to hire the firm to provide evidence for its denunciations.

"When Kroll fails to find anything, hopefully the government (will) disclose the fact I own no bank accounts in Panama, Switzerland, Paraguay, Japan or any Southeast Asian country...nor anywhere else in the world," Fujimori added.

Peru's Ministry of Justice hired Kroll Associates to investigate Fujimori's suspected secret bank accounts abroad.

Peru's anti-corruption prosecutor, Luis Vargas, said last month that dirty money, which could come from drug trafficking, was deposited in financial institutions in Asia.

The former president's sister Rosa Fujimori, and her husband and former ambassador of Peru in Tokyo Victor Aritomi were possibly involved, according to Vargas.

In June, a former Peruvian special investigator told foreign correspondents that investigators estimated that Fujimori stole "several tens of millions of dollars", but they did not know exactly where the money was.

Fujimori, who ruled Peru from 1990 to 2000, has lived in self-exile in Japan since November 2000 under the protection of his double nationality. He left Peru amidst a scandal that uncovered a corruption network organized by Vladimiro Montesinos, his former right-arm and former head of the National Intelligence Service (SIN).