Lines Area and Fisheries scandals: Suspects confess to funding crimes with extortion money

KARACHI:

The arrested officers of the Fisheries Department and the Lines Area Development Project have confessed that they gave extortion money to gangsters and outlawed nationalist organisations, and inflicted a loss of billions of rupees on the national exchequer by alloting residential and commercial plots.

The Rangers have detained five people, including two directors of the Fisheries Department, for 90 days. Investigators have also discovered that Fisheries Department Vice-Chairman Sultan Qamar Siddiqui owned assets worth Rs700 million.

Siddiqui confessed he sent black money collected by criminal gangs to other countries through the hundi system. He said he used to pay 10 per cent of his illegal earnings to the gangs and another 10 per cent to outlawed nationalist organisations. The officer added that he kept 10 per cent of the money extorted from the fish market for himself.

The Lines Area Development Project officers in NAB custody also revealed important information, based on which the allotment of a big residential and commercial projects has been cancelled. The fake allotment of two marriage halls has also been cancelled. The land has been returned to the government. The officers allotted the plots against several fake names. According to NAB sources, the land is worth billions of rupees.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 21^st, 2015.