ONCE bitten, doubly shy? Not so when it comes to the prospect of making a large amount of money in as short a time as possible in the country or, for that matter, anywhere in the world. Suffice it to say that Pakistan has seen its fair share of Ponzi schemes. All it requires is a chain of investors with the old members paid hefty returns on their money from the deposits of the new entrants. The investors may or may not understand the mechanism of it all, and quite often they don't care so long as they are getting unrealistic profits on their investments. The problem begins when the chain is broken, by the force of law or due to any other reason. The price — monetary, social and emotional — the investors awaiting the profit have to pay in the event is enormous. Those bitten by Double Shah, an ex-school teacher in the vicinity of Wazirabad in Gujranwala, a few years ago can vouch for the fact. Having said that, they must consider themselves lucky; it had taken victims of earlier scams such as the cooperative scandal much longer to get — or even realistically expect — reimbursement.

It was in 2007 that Sibtain Shah alias Double Shah was charged with defrauding a large number of people by promising to double their investment in quick time. He has since returned a part of the amount to the National Accountability Bureau. On Wednesday some of the money was disbursed in Lahore among people with claims of Rs100,000 or less. NAB has said that a total of 2,158 of Shah's victims have so far been reimbursed to the tune of Rs110.879m. The cause of all these claimants was helped by calls that they be reimbursed as early as possible — the most influential of these voices belonging to the Supreme Court. Still, there is a long queue of Double Shah victims who are hoping that there is no let up in the attention that their plight has drawn so far, and that the task of reimbursement will be completed as quickly as possible.