KARACHI, Sept 23: Over 48,000 victims of Alliance Motors scam will start getting back their invested money before the start of Ramazan.

The National Accountability Bureau in conjunction with the official assignee of Sindh High Court would disburse the amount, said Chairman NAB Lt Gen Munir Hafeez in a press briefing held at the regional office of NAB here on Tuesday.

He said that initially they would be paid 25 per cent of the verified principal amount and efforts would be made to pay 100 per cent claims.

He announced that the NAB would not take 25 per cent share of the amount recovered from the scam accused, which was around Rs500 million. He said that the same amount would be distributed among widows and the poor scam victims.

The DG NAB Sindh, Maj Gen Aijaz Bakhshi said that the verified affected investors would be intimated through a letter about the date and venue for return of initial 25 per cent of their invested money. He said that the same information would also be advertized through newspapers.

The NAB chairman said that in the first phase, not only 25 per cent of the verified claims would be paid, but 25 per cent funds had also been set aside for the unverified claims.

In case, the affected investor had died and his claim was for an amount of over Rs50,000, the heirs would have to submit succession certificate and in case where claimed amount was less than Rs50,000, the heirs would be made payment on verification by the respective Nazim.

Lt Gen Munir said that after the filing of reference, the accused involved geared up efforts for plea bargain as a result of which Rs110 million were recovered from six of the accused. This amount significantly included the repatriated money from Switzerland and Dubai.

Besides, he said, the official assignee also raised millions of rupees by disposing of 109 out of 144 detected properties and investing the same in profitable schemes.

He said that the NAB also helped the official assignee in the disposal of these properties and as a result Rs290 million was gathered with the disposal of merely seven properties while earlier 102 properties fetched only Rs430 million.

Gen Munir pointed out that in the banking history of Pakistan, the decade of 80s was stigmatized with the highest recorded plundering and looting of general public money through fraudulent and sham scandals chiefly termed as “Cooperatives and Finance Companies Scams”.

During this period, he said, four persons namely Pir Asghar Ali Qureshi, Pir Hamid Ali Qureshi, Muhammad Ibrahim and Muhammad Tayyab joined each other under the patronage of Pir Muhammad Usman and established two finance companies namely M/S TJ Ibrahim & Co and Alliance Motors (Pvt) Ltd.

All these persons had no financial background, standing or experience. Still just by thriving on their religious facade, they cheated the public with an intent to defraud, by promising a hefty monthly profit of two to three per cent on the invested amount.

Gen Munir said that before the State Bank of Pakistan could take cognizance, the scam had already engulfed around 48,250 investors and stripped them of their hard earned money and life savings to the tune of approximately Rs3,571 million.

Based on the parameters of Section 9(ix) in the National Accountability Ordinance 1999, where cheating with the general public has been made cognizable offence, the NAB conducted an initial inquiry of the scam and requested the NAB chairman to take cognizance of this offence.

The NAB chairman had authorized the DG NAB Sindh to conduct formal investigation of the “Alliance Motors Scam” in April 2002, he said.

Lt Gen Munir said that the DG NAB Sindh created a special cell comprising army officers, two case officers, seven investigation officers and experts from legal, banking, income tax, land revenue and information technology departments for investigation of this scam. The cell started investigation in close harmony and coordination with the Official Assignee, he added.

He said that 30 persons had already been arrested, 145 properties and 47 bank accounts had been investigated.

The NAB chairman said that these investigations had to be conducted on scientific lines, because the accused were not following prescribed process of documentation and maintenance of required records as per the banking rules; thus making determination of evidence a difficult proposition.

He said on completion of the investigation process, the NAB finally filed the reference in the Accountability Court. However, he said that during the course of scrutiny, it was observed that out of 48,250 claims certain number of claims was bogus. Therefore, verification of claims and maintenance of their record were carried out on the orders of Sindh High Court, he added.

The NAB chairman pointed out that claimants of unverified claims were still at liberty to prove genuineness of their claims through viable evidence after which they would be treated in accordance with the law.

“This day is a milestone for the victims of Alliance Motors scam as the High Court has given the historic verdict for return of plundered money,” he said.

Gen Munir Hafeez thanked the High Court of Sindh, official assignee and joint liquidator for their efforts. — APP