The National Accountability Bureau Rawalpindi office has asked people who fell victim to Modaraba and Musharika scams to submit their applications along with their copies of their CNICs and the Modaraba agreements within 15 days.
NAB has also published advertisements in the media seeking submission of complaints against the parties under investigation as part of the scam.
The parties include Bilal Khan Bangash, Masseha Forex, Matiur Rahman, Global Concern, Muhammad Ehsan, Hafiz Salahuddin, Ghulam Sadiq, Noman Qureshi, Abdullah and NE associates, Abdullah Khan Muhammad, Al-Shamim Enterprises, Malik Haroon Tabrez, Ghulam Haider, and Malik Naseer and Sons.
Other NAB regional offices will also accept complaints with the same supporting documents. The complaints will also help NAB ascertain the total volume of the largely paperless scam, sources said.
NAB is pursuing 81 of illegal modaraba businesses, with seven cases at investigation stage, 19 at the inquiry stage, five at the complaint verification stage, and 50 at the initial stage.
So far, there are total 36,462 individual affectees in these cases, the total volume of which has exceeded Rs22 billion. Only Rs1.21 billion have been recovered.
Accountability courts have frozen movable and immovable properties of the accused. Earlier, NAB has sought Interpol’s help in arresting the main accused.
NAB spokesperson Ramzan Sajid said NAB has arrested 12 persons including Mufti Ehsanul Haq, Mufti Ibrarul Haq, Mufti Hafiz Muhammad Nawaz, Moeen Aslam, Obaidullah, Mufti Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, Sajjad Ahmed, Asif Javed, Ghulam Ayubi, Muhammad Hussain, Hamid Nawaz and Muhammad Irfan.
He said that some of them were arrested from Lahore and some others from Sindh. NAB court Judge Muhammad Bashir on Monday also directed that references be filed against the arrested persons, some of whom have been in jail for the past 11 months.
In a meeting on Monday, NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry directed regional bureaus to gear up their efforts to pursue cases of people cheating public and recover the looted money from such swindlers.
He also called upon the general public to be vigilant of such schemes and not fall prey to offers of unrealistic returns on investment.
Qamar Zaman Chaudhry has also directed the Awareness and Prevention Wing of the Bureau and Regional NABs to carryout awareness activities using different channels of communication to make the public aware of such fraudulent schemes and persuade them to invest in government-approved investment channels only.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 15th, 2014.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ