LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Lahore, has arrested a ‘Double Shah’ like conman in Wazirabad for allegedly depriving the people of Rs6.5m on the promise of doubling their investments.

According to NAB spokesperson, Abbas lured the public into doubling their investments in 15 to 30 days and he along with his wife collected Rs6.539m.

NAB had filed a corruption reference against the suspect in the accountability court in 2015.

Abbas is from the same belt from where Syed Sibtul Hasan Gilani, of Sambrial, Sialkot, was arrested in 2007 for miniting billions from people on the promise of making their money double. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison and was released in 2014 following a plea bargain. He died in 2015. Still a good number of affected people in the Double Shah case have yet to get their claims from NAB. In another case, NAB arrested Anwarul Haq in Lahore for fabricating fake plot files of Mustafa Town and exempted liable taxes.

NAB said the suspect in connivance with co-accused was involved in fabricating illegal exemption of plots in his name and got illegal exemptions through transferring the same files to others which caused a Rs5.321m loss to the national exchequer. NAB obtained physical remand of Abbas and Haq from an accountability court till Jan 22.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2018