Forex fraud: Case against 3 Zarco employees for Rs250m embezzlement

FIA registers case on complaint of Syed Lakht-i-Hasnain, company chairman.

LAHORE: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has registered a case against three former officials of the defunct Zarco Exchange Company for allegedly siphoning off Rs250 million from company accounts.

Mubashar Hayat Mirza, the company’s former chief executive officer, Abdul Ghaffar, former accounts and finance manager, and Amin Shahid Butt, former head of compliance, have been arrested.

A case has been registered against them for criminal breach of trust (Sections 406, 408 and 409 of the Pakistan Penal Code), cheating (Section 420), forgery (Sections 468 and 471), falsification of accounts (Section 477) and abetment (Section 109), as well as for violations of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act and the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA).

The complainant in the case is Syed Lakht-i-Hasnain, the former chairman of the company.

Sources in the FIA said that more former employees of the company, as well as officials at the State Bank of Pakistan, would be arrested in connection with the case. The role of SBP officials would be a focus of the investigation, they added.



A three-member team consisting of FIA Additional Director Afraz Ahmad and Assistant Directors Saeed Ahmad Wattoo and Mubashar Tirmizi is investigating the charges, the sources said.

The FIA’s forensic cyber experts have retrieved evidence from the main server and computer system of Zarco exchange which had earlier been deleted or tampered with, the sources said. Details of the bank accounts and assets of the accused, both in Pakistan and abroad, have also been obtained. The accused have total assets worth more than Rs300 million, they said.

Heavy transfers of assets from Mirza to his brother Nadeem Hayat Mirza had also been detected.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 27^th, 2013.