LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Monday filed Rs7 billion money laundering and assets beyond means reference against Shahbaz Sharif family including his wife, sons and two daughters.
NAB nominated former chief minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif, his wife Nusrat Shahbaz, sons Hamza Shahbaz, Suleman Shahbaz, daughters Rabia Imran and Javeria Ali in the reference. Suleman Shahbaz is a proclaimed offender in this case.
The other nominated accused include Nisar Ahmad, Syed Muhammad Tahir Naqvi, Ali Muhammad Khan, Qasim Qayyum, Rashid Karamat, Masroor Anwer, Muhammad Usman, Fazal Dad Abbasi, Muhammad Shoaib Qamar and Haroon Yousfzai.
NAB also accepted requests from four people for becoming approvers against Shahbaz family in the reference including Muhammad Mushtaq alias Mushtaq Cheeni, his son Yasir Mushtaq, Shahid Rafique andAftab Ahmad. It has been learnt that the reference consists of 25,000 pages and 55 volumes.
In June 2019, Muhammad Mushtaq alias Cheeni and his son Yasir Mushtaq, front men for the Shahbaz family, while recording their statements before the court, confessed that they facilitated Suleman Shahbaz in whitening his Rs600 million black money through fake loan agreements and engineered telegraphic transfers (TTs).
He revealed that in early 2014, fake TTs worth Rs214 million were made through the accounts of his company. “I don’t know the names of people and companies used for the said fake telegraphic transfers,” Cheeni added.
As the money transferred to his accounts, he handed over cheques of the same amount to [Sharif Group of Companies Chief Financial Officer] Muhammad Usman, Cheeni said. CFO Usman deposited those cheques in account number 0037-1003371199 of Suleman Shahbaz, located at Circular Road branch of Bank Alfalah. Later, Usman asked him to open another account in the same branch, saying that Suleman had an account in the said branch, so it would be easy to make transactions.
Moreover, recently, NAB had arrested Sharif Group of Companies CFO Muhammad Usman. According to NAB, Usman had been handling an organised system of money-laundering on the instructions of former chief minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif and his sons – Hamza and Suleman. The Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU), Government of Pakistan, had forwarded a report to NAB on January 12, 2018 regarding suspicious transaction reports/ cash transaction reports (STR/ CTR) in the bank accounts of accused Shahbaz Sharif, his family members and the business entities, owned by them, after which an inquiry was authorised.
Later, the said inquiry was upgraded into an investigation titled “Investigation against Shahbaz Sharif, Hamza Shahbaz, Suleman Shahbaz and others (Assets disproportionate to known sources of income and money laundering).”
The accused persons, in order to justify the acquisition of disproportionate assets, created fake sources of income including foreign remittances, arranged under fake identities and fake loans from employees/ associates. The said fake sources of income were created through a well-organised system of money laundering in connivance with various accused persons ranging from money-changers to employees. Moreover, the evidence collected during investigation revealed that the accused CFO Usman aided and abetted the Sharif family by managing a network for laundering funds disproportionate to the known sources of income of Shahbaz, Hamza, Suleman and other family members. Meanwhile, an accountability court also extended 14-day physical remand of Usman.
