LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) claims to have arrested another Shahbaz family’s ‘front man’ who allegedly laundered money.

“Suspect Aftab Mahmood operated a foreign exchange, Usman International in London and Birmingham, and through it he laundered millions of rupees for Hamza, Salman and other members of the Shahbaz family,” a NAB statement said here on Tuesday.

It said so far the NAB arrested five suspects in connection with the money laundering and income beyond means investigation against PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif, his sons Hamza and Salman.

NAB further said suspect Mahmood was cousin of another arrested suspect Shahid Shafiq and both allegedly transferred millions of rupees to the accounts of the Shahbaz family members. The other arrested suspects are Fazal Daad, Qasim Qayum and Muhammad Mushtaq.

During an initial investigation, NAB said it had found that Shahbaz Sharif and his sons Hamza and Salman had accumulated assets to the tune of Rs3bn which were disproportionate to their known sources of income. “The three suspects in order to justify the acquisition of assets have mentioned foreign remittances worth Rs1.3bn.”

The bureau alleged that most of the remittances were fictitious and the process of remittances was used for “laundering the assets” disproportionate to their known sources of income.

Meanwhile, NAB has summoned a factory worker in Ferozwala in connection with the investigation against Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Durani for April 24 (today).

According to NAB, Rs5 million have been detected in the account of Ali Hasan. Hasan said he was a poor man and had no idea who deposited such a huge amount in his account.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2019