ISLAMABAD: The Nati­onal Accountability Bureau (NAB) chief on Wednesday claimed that Interpol had issued a ‘red notice’ for Bahria Town owner Malik Riaz and his son Ali Riaz, who are wanted in corruption cases in Pakistan.

Speaking at a press conference at NAB headquarters, NAB Chairman retired Lt Gen Nazir Ahmed Butt said, “Today I am giving you breaking news that Interpol has issued a red notice against Malik Riaz and Ali Riaz.”

However, this development could not be independently verified through Interpol.

A red notice is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action. A red notice is not an international arrest warrant, according to the Interpol website.

Riaz, 72, is the founder and chairman of Bahria Town, while his 48-year-old son serves as chief executive. The property tycoon is currently residing in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he has launched a multi-billion-dollar housing project.

Pakistan may face some difficulty in its efforts to extradite Malik Riaz and his son, due to strained Gulf relations over the Iran war.

“Yes, there is an aspect of Dubai’s annoyance with Pakistan,” the chairman said, agreeing that bringing Malik Riaz back to Pakistan would not be an easy task. He, however, said NAB was sending a team for extradition.

Malik Riaz and his real estate business have been embroiled in legal woes in the past few years, with the tycoon being an absconder in the Al-Qadir Trust case. In August 2025, amidst legal troubles and ahead of planned auctions of Bahria Town properties, Riaz had appealed to be “given a chance to return to serious dialogue, and a dignified solution”.

Separately, the Islamabad police chief, Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi, met an Interpol delegation at the Central Police Office.

Rs3 trillion recovered

The NAB chief further claimed that the bureau recovered assets to the tune of about Rs3 trillion in the first quarter of the current calendar year and also revealed that special task forces were being formed in all four provinces for the utilisation of the recovered state-owned assets. He said this reflected a substantial and unprecedented increase of 33 times compared to Rs91.01 billion recovered in the first quarter of 2025.

Responding to a question about the curtailment of NAB’s powers through recent legislation, he said the minimum cap of Rs500 million should be revised as cases below that amount did not fall within NAB’s purview. “The minimum cap of investigating the cases should be brought down from Rs500m to Rs100m,” he added.

The chairman said it was decided that NAB would not take up any infrastructure development case in the middle of the project. “We will let the project be completed and we will take action later if any irregularity has taken place,” he said.

The chairman also said NAB has prepared a policy for all private and public housing schemes under which the trend of selling plots on paper (files) will be abolished.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2026