UK’s NCA told judge: Money laundering probe of Sharifs based on correspondence with ARU

LONDON: The UK National Crime Agency (NCA) told the Westminster Magistrates’ Court that it froze assets of Sharif family members in the high profile money-laundering investigation “based on the correspondence with the ARU,” according to a court paper.

In the court document that was put before a judge at the London court seeking permission of the court to extend the Assets Freezing Order (AFO) to continue investigating Shehbaz Sharif and his son Suleman Sharif, the NCA told the court about the Assets Recovery Unit (ARU) of Pakistan: “The grounds to suspect the frozen funds constituted recoverable property was based on the correspondence with the ARU, media reporting at the time in Pakistan and the perceived inability for Suleman Sharif (SS) and Mian Mohammad Shehbaz Sharif (MMSS) to work legitimately in the UK given their visa status”.

The NCA application went on: “District Judge Tanveer Ikram (DJ Ikram), whilst remarking that some of the information such as the media reporting was tentative, stated he was satisfied on the information that there were reasonable grounds to suspect the funds constituted recoverable property”. The NCA application, a part of which was shown in Naya Pakistan Show conducted by Shehzad Iqbal on Geo News, also informed the judge that a copy of the original Account Freezing Order application was available on request. The application also confirmed that the NCA was conducting probe in Pakistan to “establish the exact nature of the various investigations” into Suleman Sharif and that Shehbaz Sharif and Suleman Sharif have “committed offence contrary to Sections 327, 328 and 329 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002”.

The NCA informed the court that “Pakistan Law-Enforcement Agencies have confirmed they are willing to assist in future investigations”.

The application to request the continuation of freezing orders on the assets was filed before the Westminster Magistrates’ Court a year after the original freezing orders of December 2019 were about to expire, which were granted by the court to investigate accounts of Shehbaz Sharif at Habib Bank Ltd UK and Barclays and Suleman Sharif’s accounts at HSBC and Barclays.

The extension application informed the judge that the NCA had received “significant material” on October 13 from “Pakistan authorities in relation to the ongoing investigation into the criminal conduct of SS and MMSS in Pakistan. The material included a “Court Reference and Investigation Report”.

The NCA told the court: “This investigation report concerns the acquisition of criminal property by MMSS and his wider family totalling Pakistani Rs7,328,000,000 (approximately GBP 35 million). The offences alleged in Pakistan are: accumulation of assets disproportionate to known sources of income as defined in section 9(a)(v) of National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999; money-laundering as defined in Section 2 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) 2010; receipt of funds through dishonest means (Rs65 million) as defined in Section 9(a)(iv) of NAO 1999; Aid, Assistance and Abetment in Section 9(a)(xii) of NAO 1999”.

The extension application informed the court that Shehbaz Sharif was “arrested in Pakistan on September 28, 2020 in connection with the above investigation.

He is currently held on judicial remand”. Geo News has already exclusively reported some contents of the original application that was filed by the NCA before the Central London court in December 2019 to get accounts freezing orders from the court.

The original application by the NCA, headed under “Criminal Conduct of Shehbaz Sharif in Pakistan, at the start had informed the court why it wants to freeze assets linked with Shehbaz Sharif and his son: “On December 11, 2019, the National Crime Agency received a letter from the Asset Recovery Unit (ARU) of Pakistan.

The ARU was created by Prime Minister Imran Khan to assist in the recovery of criminal assets to the state of Pakistan”.

The NCA original application further added: “This letter has confirmed that Shehbaz Sharif is currently under investigation by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Pakistan’s autonomous anti-corruption agency and was granted bail by the Accountability Court on February 14, 2019.

This is in relation to the two cases involving the Ashiana Housing Scheme and the Ramzan Sugar Mills. The alleged criminality is that of misuse of authority and associated money-laundering (please see Annex 4 – Letter to NCA from ARU).