FIA team raids Omni Group sugar mill in Badin

Seize records and computer hardware from the premises

HYDERABAD: A team of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), aided by personnel of the Sindh Rangers, raided the Omni group's sugar mill in Khoshki, Badin district, on Sunday. The mill is owned by former president and Pakistan Peoples Party's co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari's associate Anwar Majeed, who is at present in the FIA's custody in a multi-billion money laundering case.

According to the mill's staff and police sources, the team scoured the admin office and grilled the managerial staff during their around six-hour presence at the mill's premises. Before leaving, the team reportedly took away documents and computer hardware from the facility.

The FIA officials also seized weapons of the mills' security guards, later handing over four rifles and seven Kalashnikovs to the Khoski police station. No official spoke to the media.

The FIA had taken Majeed into custody on August 15 outside the Supreme Court where he and his family members appeared before the three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, which was hearing a suo motu case pertaining to alleged money laundering of Rs35 billion through fake accounts. Subsequently, the names of his four family members besides his own were put on the Exit Control List on the apex court's order. Abdul Majeed and his son, Abdul Ghani Majeed, are currently in FIA custody and are being interrogated for their involvement in the Rs35 billion money laundering scam.



PPP co-chairperson Zardari, sister Faryal Talpur, former Pakistan Stock Exchange chairman Hussain Lawai and Summit Bank Senior Vice-President Taha Raza are among those being investigated by a seven-member JIT led by FIA Additional Director General Najaf Mirza for allegedly facilitating 29 'fake' accounts in Summit Bank, Sindh Bank and United Bank Limited.

According to the FIR registered against Lawai and others, billions of rupees were deposited into the fake accounts and subsequently transferred to beneficiaries, including the company owned by Zardari and his sister, the Zardari Group. The Zardari Group received Rs15 million of the laundered money, according to the FIR.

In December 2016, the Sindh Rangers had conducted raids at the Karachi office of the Omni Group of Companies and the residence of its owner, Anwar Majeed and confiscated records which reportedly contained clues of the money laundering chain.

Loan scam

A scam involving the Khoski sugar mill and the Sindh Bank had earlier surfaced in June, 2015, in which hundreds of national identity cards of farmers who sell their sugarcane crop to the mill were used to get a bank loan. The Central Investigation Agency (CIA) investigated the case and later an FIR was also registered on the complaint of a former staff member at the mill, Khuda Bux Jamali.



He nominated the mill's cane manager, Hatim Shar, finance manager, Amanullah Shar, as well as a contractor, Ghulam Mustafa Khatti, in the Rs700 million scam. Both Hatim and Amanullah were detained for a few days by the police but the investigation did not make any headway.

The staff had allegedly procured the loan for disbursal of small loans to farmers for the purchase of agricultural inputs. Official sources had then suggested that the Rs700 million fraud was part of a larger Rs2.5 billion scam involving the mill and the bank.

The Omni group owns two sugar mills in Badin district.