ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) will file a supplementary reference next week against the main character of a Modaraba scam accused of cheating hundreds of innocent people and depriving them of their hard-earned money in the name of ‘safe investment’.
The initial reference against Mufti Ehsanul Haq, chief executive of Fayyazi Group of Industries, was filed in an accountability court in February.
“The NAB headquarters has received a draft reference against Mufti Ehsan from its Rawalpindi region,” the bureau’s spokesman Ramzan Sajid told Dawn on Wednesday.
NAB approves references in Modaraba scams
He said the NAB’s Executive Board would take up the supplementary reference at its next meeting to be held in a couple of days.
Last year NAB received a number of complaints from general public as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) that Ehsanul Haq and his directors had received Rs6.5 billion from people for investment in Modaraba and Musharika schemes and allegedly cheated them.
NAB investigators arrested Mufti Ehsanul Haq in April last year. While admitting the guilt, he applied for voluntary return (VR) under section 25 (a) of the NAO 1999. On June 18, NAB approved the VR for an amount of Rs552 million.
Mufti Ehsan submitted 20 pay orders of Rs446m and promised to deposit the remaining amount in one month. NAB kept the original documents of his immovable properties as guarantee for six months and later released him.
Earlier, NAB received more than 800 complaints from the people who had invested over Rs550 million.
A NAB official said that after Mufti Ehsan had been released hundreds of other victims filed claims and complaints and it was realised the amount involved in the scam was quite higher than the bureau’s estimates.
Three months after his release Mufti Ehsan disappeared and shut down his office. NAB put his name on the ECL. He was again arrested in October last year.
According to NAB, so far 27,208 affected people have lodged complaints with the NAB in 11 cases amounting to Rs31.05 billion. The main case relates to the illegal Modaraba venture Mufti Ehsan was operating in Rawalpindi. He was paying Rs8,000 per month on an investment of Rs100,000 and assured the investors that profits would also be reaped from ‘Halal’ sources. People invested between Rs50,000 and Rs1m.
In its letter, the SECP informed NAB that seven companies were involved in the illegal business and none of these was registered with the government. Their accounts were also not verified by any certified auditor.
Mufti Ehsan also owned Spadix Pharma Company.
During the interrogation, he told NAB that the depositors’ money had been invested in various profit-making businesses abroad, including in gemstones trade in Thailand and Honk Kong. He admitted that these investments had been made without employing any banking channel.
Published in Dawn, July 24th , 2014
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