NAB arrested both Ayub and Mohsin, freezing all their properties, bank accounts and other assets connected with Aglam Links. PHOTO: FILE
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has arrested former provincial minister and Pakistan Peoples Party candidate for NA-166 and PP-230 Tikka Muhammad Iqbal in connection with the notorious Qasr-e-Zauq scandal, The Express Tribune has learnt.
According to NAB officials, Iqbal was accused of facilitating the sale of the Qasr-e-Zauq Plaza which had been frozen by the bureau in connection with 1.38-billion-rupee fraud case. Iqbal had acted as a guarantor in the sale of the property, in return for monetary benefits from the family of former senator Gulzar Khan.
The scandal surfaced after NAB received complaints from 85 people against Aglam Links (Pvt) Ltd, a forex company run by Sheikh Ayub and his son Sheikh Mohsin Ayub as a front for a Ponzi scheme. The father and the son allegedly amassed Rs1.38 billion by offering lucrative returns on investment, and subsequently closed their offices and disappeared from the scene, leaving 85 investors in the lurch.
Following complaints, NAB arrested both Ayub and Mohsin, freezing all their properties, bank accounts and other assets connected with Aglam Links. During investigation Ayub deposited Rs600 million of the cheated amount with NAB.
While he expressed a desire to return the remaining amount, both before the bureau and the Supreme Court during his bail plea, he claimed he was unable to do so since he had been forced to sell Qasr-e-Zauq Plaza, which according to him was valued at Rs1billion, at a throwaway price of Rs480million. Ayub accused former senator Gulzar Khan’s family of pressuring him into selling the property to them. He also named several other actors in the sale, which include Tikka Muhammad Iqbal, the latter’s son-in-law Adil Saleem and former attorney general Malik Qayyum.
NAB subsequently summoned all the actors named by Ayub. According to bureau sources, a total of Rs618 million has been recovered from Ayub, his son and Adil Saleem on account of plea bargains. They added that Malik Qayyum also deposited Rs98 million with NAB as a ‘voluntary return’.
NAB officials added that the remaining amount would be recovered from the rest of the accused, including former minister Iqbal, shortly and distributed among those cheated by Ayub and Mohsin.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 7th, 2013.
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Good riddance ppp n pmln
Its ironic, a country where a labor is struggling to feed his family, these looters are making money in millions and billions and its more ironic that our people are thinking to vote the corrupt political parties (PPP, PML-N) again.
Well done NAB. Go after all cheats, no matter who they are. Recover monies from them, expropriate all their assets as they were fraudulently acquired and then send them to jail, throwing the key away.