March 26, 2007	Monday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 6, 1428

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GUJRAT, March 25: He is neither inspired by some entertaining flick nor does he claim to possess the magical lamp. Nor yet he believes in employing any gimmick to sell his idea. He is Syed Sibtul Hassan Shah, Double Shah to his growing number of clients, for he doubles the amount anyone fills in his coffer within 70 days.

“Be a millionaire in a short time” is the motto of Mr Shah of Allahabad (Wazirabad), who has won many a heart in a short time for being “true to his commitment”. Yes, so far he has doubled the amount of every person who has contacted him.

During a visit to Wazirabad on Sunday, this correspondent learnt that around 30 sub-agents of Double Shah, a.k.a DS, were busy dealing around 500 clients wishing to double their money. What surprises one after having a chat with the clients is the fact that they hardly have any qualms about the fate of their hard-earned money. Ironically, no law-enforcement agency seems willing to interrogate the money dealers as the officials claim they have no solid ground to launch a crackdown.

Sibtul Hassan Shah, a retired schoolteacher, is running his private bank for the last one and-a-half year. Initially, he gave double money to his clients in only 15 days and later he enhanced the duration to one month. Winning the hearts of his client, he faced no resistance in enhancing the re-payment deadline to 45 days and now he takes 70 days. He accepts a minimum amount of Rs35,000, but there is no upper limit and it’s up to a person interested in striking a bargain.

He gives a simple receipt bearing no monogram to his clients. The receipt carries the amount paid, date of receiving and date of delivery and Double Shah’s signature.

Most of the clients are from the golden triangular districts of Gujranwala, Sialkot and Gujrat. They include serving and retired armymen, police officials, government employees, doctors, lawyers, petrol pump owners, traders and industrialists. There are conflicting claims about the personal business of Mr Shah as most of the clients and even his agents know nothing about his business.

Information gleaned by Dawn reveals that Mr Shah is a known exporter of household and kitchen items and he frequently visit Dubai. Though rumours had spread many times that Mr Shah had disappeared, he would emerge every time after a lapse of few days and with some astonishing package for his clients. He has won confidence of his clients by such means.

But it is he who is responsible for the death of a client in Wazirabad some months ago, a resident of the city claims. Asmat Baig, a poor resident of Nizamabad, had collected Rs3.5 million after selling his and relatives’ property and gave the money to Mr Shah. On the date of delivery, he found Shah’s house locked and heard from the area people that he had escaped. Asmat suffered a severe heart attack and died in hospital. To everyone’s surprise, Mr Shah appeared the very next day and gave Rs7 million to his heirs.

Owing to occasional rumours, some officials of the FIA and intelligence agency did pick up Mr Shah but they had to release him for having no evidence of any wrongdoing against him. Interestingly, some of the FIA officials who had conducted the raid became his clients and deposited money with the bank.

Just a couple of days ago, it was rumoured that Mr Shah would shower millions of rupees in Wazirabad through helicopter on March 23. Thousands of people from the city and its adjoining areas flooded the streets and roads of Allahabad and Nizamabad and roamed about there the whole day through in the hope of getting money. But the only showers they had were of disappointment.

One of his agents told Dawn on the request of anonymity that DS had delivered around Rs10 million today and received around Rs20 million from clients. The area people had developed trust and faith in DS so much so that they did not take their money back on the date of delivery and again deposited the doubled amount to get it multiplied.

Taking advantage of the situation, some known traders and industrialists have also visited the place and started dealing with the clients on the condition of half payment from the profit. They are focusing on those clients who have doubts about the credibility of DS and fear that he might flee with their money one day.

They issue cheques to clients having the whole amount and half of the amount from the profit. In this way they are earning half of the profit amount from every deal. Two main such dealers are Sheikh Abdur Rahman and Ilyas Butt who are also known as big bookies for gambling on prize bonds and on cricket matches. It is also heard that the agents are taking one per cent commission from DS on deposit day and from clients on delivery day.

The government functionaries who have previous experiences of co-operative bank, Mehran bank, and forex scandals in which thousand of people were deprived of billions of rupees have kept a mum over the issue. The government has been receiving reports that DS is either involved in money laundering and turning the black money into white or he is running a big racket of bookies involved in gambling on cricket matches and prize bond chits.

The income tax authorities, too, have failed to trace that how much money he has received and delivered to clients during the last 20 months through his private bank. They have even no idea of the number of clients who had their money doubled during the period. The department is also reluctant to trace the assets of the private bank.