Axact-gate scandal: FIA asked to submit charge-sheet within 10 days

KARACHI:

A district and sessions court has given investigators 10 days to submit the final charge-sheet against nine men implicated in the Axact-run fake degrees scam including the company’s Chief Executive Officer Shoaib Sheikh.

On Saturday, Judicial Magistrate (South) Noor Muhammad Kalmati also directed the investigators to present the witnesses in court on Monday (tomorrow).

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) submitted a supplementary challan of the case in court, contending that besides producing fake degrees, the suspects were also involved in money-laundering.

“The accused had opened numerous bank accounts under different names and were using them for illegal transactions from Dubai.”

The FIA said Axact had spent the money on luxury cars and a 45-acre plot of land in DHA. “An investigation into it is under way and we are preparing a separate challan for financial irregularities.”

The document submitted to the court stated that at least 2.2 million fake educational certificates had been seized from the suspects during the probe.

The agency also declared Axact CEO’s wife Aisha Sheikh, a director at the company, and one Farhan Kamal as absconding suspects. Axact came under scrutiny after Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar had directed the FIA to investigate a New York Times special report, which claimed that the company was involved in the sale of fake degrees around the world and earning tens of millions of dollars from it.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 14^th, 2015.