Shehbaz ‘ringleader’ of money laundering gang: Akbar

Top government representatives on Friday accused PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif and his son Hamza of money laundering on a massive scale using the Ramzan Sugar Mills.

In back-to-back news conferences held in Lahore and Islamabad, Adviser to PM on Accountability and Interior Barrister Mirza Shahzad Akbar and Federal Information and Broadcasting Minister Fawad Chaudhry gave a trail of “billions of rupees laundered through the Ramzan Sugar Mills”.

“Shehbaz Sharif is the ringleader of a money laundering gang. He and his son Hamza have been found involved in corruption and money laundering worth Rs16 billion in the Ramzan Sugar Mills case,” Akbar said in Lahore.

The SAPM said a challan submitted by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) against Shehbaz and Hamza to a court in the Ramzan Sugar Mills money laundering case consisted of more than 4,000 documents and 100 witnesses.

“The National Accountability Bureau [NAB] also found Shehbaz’s involvement in money laundering and according to the FIA charge-sheet, he is the mastermind of the group,” he added.

Akbar maintained that the modus operandi used in the Hudabiya Paper Mills case case was used again in the Ramzan Sugar Mills.

He claimed that Shehbaz managed to obtain relief in the Hudabiya Paper Mills case on “technical grounds and not on merit”.

The adviser said billions of rupees were laundered through the accounts of low-wage employees of the Ramzan Sugar Mills.

Also read: FIA to submit challan against Shehbaz on Dec 11

Akbar claimed that Shehbaz had opened 28 'benamidar' accounts for money laundering between 2008 and 2018, a period during which he was the chief minister of Punjab.

He said salary certificates of those employees were part of the bank record under the 'know your customer (KYC)' regime.

The adviser said the employees also confessed during investigation that the bank accounts were opened in their names and the cheque books and other belongings were taken over from them.

He said the account opening was a condition after acquiring a job at the sugar mill. Akbar said an amount of Rs16 billion was deposited in the accounts by 'karyana' merchants, schoolteachers, hardware shops, auto-parts dealers, chicken suppliers, etc.

He said the FIA came to know from the account holders during the investigation that none of them paid anything to the Sharif group. The same method to launder money was also used in Sindh.

The salaries of the employees varied between Rs5,000 and 30,000; however, transactions in the accounts were worth billions of rupees.

He added that the FIA had submitted a challan to a court and the charge-sheeting process would begin from the next hearing.

Also read: LHC grants bail to Shehbaz Sharif in money laundering case

Information Minister Fawad said in Islamabad that with the availability of evidence in the money laundering case, the PML-N president could not escape punishment.

He was addressing a news conference flanked by Minister of State of Information and Broadcasting Farrukh Habib, Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad and SAPM on Political Communication Shahbaz Gill.

The minister said that about a year ago, it came to light that Shehbaz and Hamza were involved in money laundering and they operated those accounts like the Omni Group accounts by the Zardari group.

However, he said, the Zardari group did not operate those accounts directly.

“But Shehbaz and Hamza were operating them directly and 17,000 transactions of 18 people were checked through which Rs16 billion were laundered.”

He asked the media that it should examine the documents of the cases against Shehbaz and his son and bring the facts before the people.

The minister said there was only one chance of Shehbaz escaping punishment – that was if no hearings of the case were held.

He hoped that the court would hear the case on daily basis for its early disposal.