Counterfeit letters: Industrialists seeking loans defrauded by bankers

FIA and police investigating after finding fake foreign bank guarantees.

LAHORE:

A group of bank officials have conned several industrialists out of millions of rupees by charging them commissions on counterfeit foreign bank guarantees, The Express Tribune has learnt.

Two cases have been registered and the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) Commercial Banking Circle is also conducting a probe on the basis of a complaint made by Khurram Majeed, the chief executive of Seven Eight Six (SES) Engineering Works.

Majeed told the FIA that he applied for a business loan to the Bank Square Branch of Habib Bank Limited on May 15, 2002. He said he met Amir Seed, the bank’s mortgage manager, to discuss mortgaging property against the loan.

He said Saeed referred him to Munawwar Ahmad, the recoveries manager (unsecured) at the bank, and he later met with the two HBL officials as well as Sheikh Muhammad Rashid, recovery officer for United Bank Limited (UBL), Rashad Ameeruddin, who claimed to be the CEO of New Sun Rise (pvt) Limited, and Kashif Chaudhry, an agent of the said company.

Majeed said that they made a deal to provide him a foreign bank guarantee for Pakistani rupees equal to five millions euros for a commission of Rs4 million. The agreement was made on stamp paper, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune, with Munawwar Ahmed and Khurram Majeed identified as the two parties. Majeed paid the commission on May 28 and received the foreign bank guarantee, but it turned out to be a fake.

During the course of investigations by the FIA, more fake bank guarantees were found, including a Barclays guarantee for 25 million euros, a JSC Finrostbank guarantee for 10.5 million euros, and a Bayerische Landesbank Germany guarantee for 100 million euros, with Rashad Ameeruddin of REH New Sunrise (Pvt) Limited mentioned as the beneficiary.

A case against the conmen has also been registered at Mandi Faizabad police station in Nankana Sahib district under Sections 420 (Cheating inducing delivery of property), 461 (Dishonesty breaking open receptacle containing property), 472 (Making or possessing a counterfeit seal with the intention of committing forgery) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) against 10 people including Munawwar Ahmad. The nine accused other than Ahmad, including two Bank of Punjab officials, have been arrested. In this case, the accused allegedly received 1,000 bags of rice worth about Rs9 million from Muhammad Rafiq, the owner of Faizabad Rice Mills, on the pretext of providing a foreign bank guarantee.

A case registered at Gharbi Peshawar police station, on the complaint of Zahid Iqbal, against Munawwar Ahmad and others states that Iqbal was conned out of Rs4 million on the pretext of commission for providing a foreign bank guarantee

Published in The Express Tribune, December 17^th, 2012.