A young investigation officer(say X) at Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) one day was handed over a four-page report by a high ranking officer. Already uneasy about being summoned individually, Zeb looked at the officer curiously, who asked him to take a seat.
The officer picked up the nearby desk phone and instructed the operator not to disturb him for a while. He then turned to X This is extremely sensitive information. The file contains information about certain bank accounts through which multi-billion rupee transactions have been made. Our sources say these bank accounts are being used for money laundering by or at the behest of certain influential members of Sindh’s ruling political party.”
The officer instructed X to discreetly investigate the accounts and report back to him, while maintaining absolute secrecy. “No one other than the two of us should know about this investigation.”
For X who was still quite new to the agency, the whole episode was surreal.
Little did he know at the time that this surreptitious conversation would be the precursor to a cascade of events that would ultimately incriminate some of the most prominent bankers and businessmen as well as threaten the very foundations of one of the biggest political dynasties of the country.
According to FIA sources, information regarding the fake accounts came to the fore when an intelligence agency picked up a prominent money changer in an unrelated case.
Under considerable pressure, the money changer spilled the beans faster than the authorities could comprehend. Among other revelations was a candid confession that certain bank accounts had been created to receive kickbacks. The intelligence agency shared the information with the FIA.
The money changer was released a year after his alleged detention.
Omni group agrees to pay Rs12b
As the monitoring and investigation of these suspicious accounts continued, it surfaced that five of these accounts in two banks – the Sindh Bank and Summit Bank – had been used for transactions worth around Rs15 billion.
The accounts, it was soon discovered, were operated by certain companies, which were found to be fake. Funds were credited into these accounts from contractors with multi-billion rupee contracts with the Sindh government. This money was then transferred to accounts of companies owned and operated by the Omni Group, whose chairperson, Anwar Majeed, is a close aide of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari. Another beneficiary was Nasir Lootah, the chairperson of Summit Bank and a member of Dubai’s ruling family.
The money was even used to cover the personal expenditures of the leadership of Sindh’s ruling party, including millions paid to a travel agent, payment of electricity bills and for the purchase of luxury vehicles.
When the first few months of investigation showed possible involvement of such high-profile persons, Officer X was again summoned by his superior officer. This time, he was instructed to shelve the investigation.
The investigation resumed almost a year and a half later, when Bashir Memon took charge as Director-General of the agency. A senior reputable officer of the Police Services of Pakistan (PSP), he had previously served on various positions in the Sindh Police.
Some of Memon’s briefings included those on mega-corruption scandals. He decided to investigate them afresh. They got their big break in December, last year, when the Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU), a regulatory body, flagged several transactions with a Suspicious Transaction Report (STP) and shared it with the agency.
This meant the transaction could be related to money laundering or even terrorist financing.
FIA’s State Bank circle initiated a formal inquiry in January. It was soon revealed that some major contractors of the Sindh government had transferred billions in the accounts of seven companies that were at this point termed ‘suspicious’.
These included A-One International, a company registered in the name of Tariq Sultan.
The FIA summoned Sultan, who got the shock of his life when he was informed that an account in his name had made transactions worth around Rs4 billion.
For someone who had only recently started earning Rs25,000 per month, not much above the mandated minimum wage, such an amount was unheard of. But that was not the end of the surprises; at least Rs15 million of that amount was transferred to an account associated with Zardari Group. Former president, Asif Ali Zardari, his three children and his sister, Faryal Talpur, are listed as shareholders in the company.
Sultan is an employee of Omni Group, which is in turn owned by Anwar Majeed. The latter, who is now in state custody, is under investigation for his involvement in these transactions. Zardari and Talpur have been called in for questioning by the FIA several times and have secured pre-arrest bail from a banking court.
By June 2018, the FIA had several high-profile names on its list but was unable to make headway – for several reasons. Local investigators were unwilling to pursue the case against the influential friends of the former president. The FIA, time and again, complained of the lack of cooperation from other agencies as well as the provincial government.
It was at his point that the Supreme Court intervened.
Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar took suo motu notice of the ‘slow progress’ in the money laundering case. The agency’s director-general and relevant officials were asked to appear before the apex court.
The CJP’s intervention acted as a catalyst for the investigation agency.
Officials arrested another close aide of Zardari, Hussain Lawai, on July 6, a few days after he was barred from leaving the country. The septuagenarian Lawai had previously headed Summit Bank and was currently serving as chairman of the Pakistan Stock Exchange. He was arrested along with another banker, Taha Raza, and two others.
Subsequently, the first case was registered in the mega-corruption scandal.
The FIA submitted its report to the apex court on July 8. According to the report, the investigations revealed a web of companies and accounts that were being used to transfer billions of rupees. Most of the accounts were either being operated in the Sindh Bank, owned by the provincial government, Summit Bank, which is owned by a UAE prince with alleged close ties to Zardari and United Bank Limited (UBL).
In all, 29 accounts were identified that received payments, totaling at least Rs35 billion.
At this point, the agency also submitted three lists in the court. One comprised the Sindh government’s major contractors, who transferred billions of rupees into the fake accounts. The second list identified the seven fake companies, while the third, which stirred the most controversy, contained the names of those who had benefitted from these payments.
After getting the go-ahead from the apex court, the agency enlarged the ambit of its investigations.
Since then, investigators have unearthed over a hundred such accounts, from which money was transferred to influential persons through back channels. Moreover, cash amounting to almost Rs5 billion was also withdrawn from these accounts.
According to FIA, properties were purchased in the UAE at the time of the cash withdrawal.
Due to the extent and scope of the investigations, the FIA DG had formed seven teams under Najaf Quli Mirza, who is the agency’s additional director general.
Each team was headed by an assistant director, three of whom were from Sindh, while four hailed from Punjab. Each team comprised two investigation officers.
Those working on the case believe that Omni group’s Anwar Majeed and his son Abdul Ghani Majeed are the masterminds behind the entire scheme. The day-to-day dealings were, however, carried out by two company executives, Aslam Masood and Arif Khan. Both have left the country. There were unconfirmed reports that an FIA team met and recorded the testimony of Masood in Jeddah, where he was under treatment at the time. FIA officials did not confirm the veracity of these reports.
What the FIA investigators did confirm was that these accounts, many of which were opened in the names of Omni Group’s low-cadre employees, were used for layering, as well as transferring money to different accounts through which real estate was purchased.
Omni Group chief Anwar Majeed was arrested along with son Abdul Ghani Majeed on August 15, when they returned to the country on being summoned by the apex court. They are now on judicial remand.
Meanwhile, Asif Ali Zardari and Faryal Talpur have appeared before the investigators and have since secured interim bail from the Banking Court. The last hearing of the case was on December 21, when the duo got their fourth extension in the bail till January 7.
Amid complaints from the FIA and barbs flying in the Supreme Court, CJP Nisar ordered the formation of a Joint Investigation Team to quicken the pace of the investigation. One of FIA’s principal complaints was the lack of cooperation from the Sindh government.
That was resolved as the CJP ordered the Sindh government to hand over records of expenditures on development projects over the last five years. In the meantime, the Sindh government, under pressure from the SC, also issued directives to its various departments to stop all dealings with the Omni Group.
Anwar Majeed and company had their own problems to deal with. The JIT, by this time, had unearthed irregularities in loans amounting to over Rs73 billion taken by nine sugar mills belonging to the Omni Group from the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) as well as other private banks. As many as nine new inquiries were registered in the FIA’s Karachi commercial banking circle.
The investigation found that the Omni Group had pledged 4.5 million bags of sugar in March and April 2018 to obtain a total loan of Rs13b from both government and private banks.
The majority of the loan amount was taken from government banks.
According to the rules, the Omni group could not sell the pledged 4.5m bags of sugar without advanced permission from the banks. It was also bound to return all the loans to the banks within a week of the sale of the sugar at the specified prices. According to the JIT’s report submitted to SC on October 26, Omni Group owed a total debt of Rs73 billion to different banks. It took Rs23 billion from the National Bank and Rs50 billion from Sindh Bank, Silk Bank and Summit Bank.
The JIT, during the course of its investigation, learnt that the Omni Group had shifted the sugar bags, which were kept as pledges, from the sugar mills to an undisclosed location, or had sold them without informing the bank during the hearing of the money laundering case.
In the meantime, accounts in the names of several unwitting individuals, such as the ice cream vendor and a rickshaw driver, were found to have been used to transfer funds. These individuals had no connection to the Omni Group or any other individual associated with the case.
The masterminds, in connivance with bank officials, had allegedly used their accounts which had been lying dormant for some time. In one case, when the FIA reached the house of a person under whose name one such account was operating, they were informed that the account holder had died some time ago.
Current status
Last week, the JIT submitted its final report to the Supreme Court, which will take up the case for hearing on Monday, December 24. All the evidence, compiled over the course of the last three years starting with Zeb, was stuffed in over eight boxes and submitted to the apex court’s registry.
The scope of the inquiry now includes over 300 persons of interest, scores of bank accounts and companies associated with them. At the centre of it all are Anwar Majeed, his sons, bankers Hussain Lawai and Taha Raza, the incumbent and a former chief minister and two former chief secretaries, besides the leadership of Sindh’s ruling party, Asif Ali Zardari and his sister, Faryal Talpur.
Using estimates based on celebrities' known holdings of real estate, art and shares of companies both public and private, as well as other assets and estimated lifetime earnings, Forbes magazine has named its wealthiest celebrities. Those include like of film-makers, authors, music artists as well as makeup moguls. Here are some who make the most money.
**--George Lucas:-
Topping the list is director George Lucas, with a net worth of $5.4 billion. Most of Lucas’s wealth came from the $4.05 billion sale of the LucasFilm production company to Walt Disney Co in 2012, Forbes said.
**-- Steven Spielberg:--
Fellow film-maker Steven Spielberg, 72, came in second, with an estimated $3.7 billion net worth. Spielberg’s career as director, writer and producer spans some 50 years with credits that include Jaws, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan.
**-- Oprah Winfrey:-
The richest female celebrity was Oprah Winfrey, 64, whose acting and media enterprises have yielded her a net worth of an estimated $2.8 billion, third overall.
**--Michael Jordan:--
Basketball legend Michael Jordan boosted his net worth by an estimated $400 million in the past year, mostly off his 34-year-long sneaker deal with Nike and his stake in the Charlotte Hornets. His estimated $1.7 billion net worth ranked him fourth.
**--Kylie Jenner:--
Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics puts the 21-year-old on track to become the youngest ever self-made billionaire, the magazine said. She has an estimated worth of $900 million.
On Nov. 7, 1872 with Captain Benjamin Briggs in command, the Mary Celeste set off from New York for Genoa, Italy. On board were a crew of seven alongside Briggs, his wife, and their two-year-old daughter, all of whom were ready to deliver 1,700 barrels of commercial alcohol needed to fortify Italian wines. Unfortunately, the Mary Celeste never docked in Italy.
Instead, the ship was discovered adrift in the Atlantic near the Azores Islands on Dec. 5, with no signs of struggle, a lifeboat missing, the captain’s log and alcohol intact, but without a single living person on board.
Theories of what happened range all the way from alien abduction to mutiny to cargo fumes that forced abandonment, but no conclusive proof exists as to what actually happened to the crew of the Mary Celeste.
Bollywood actor Priyanka Chopra and US pop singer Nick Jonas, who tied the knot earlier this month, hosted their second wedding reception on Wednesday in Mumbai.
The newlyweds had previously hosted a reception in New Delhi on December 4, and will host another in Mumbai on Thursday.
Wednesday’s reception was held at the JW Marriott and was attended by media persons and close friends and family while Thursday’s reception will see Priyanka’s industry friends in attendance.
Priyanka wore an off-shoulder Sabyasachi anarkali, while Nick wore a suit at the reception.
A video shared on social media showed Priyanka addressing the reception and telling guests: “It means so much to us that all of you came tonight. This has been an extremely special chapter in my life and I wanted my husband to meet all of the special people that have contributed to it. So thank you so much for being here, friends of my parents, my mom, who’s hosting this wonderful evening, my dad, who I know is here. Thank you so much for coming and giving us your blessings and I hope you have a wonderful time tonight, and this is my husband, Nick Jonas.”
Nick is then seen grabbing the mic and joking that this was his “first show in India.”
“Thank you all so much for coming out, it wasn’t too far from here that I took Madhu [Chopra] out to lunch and asked her if I could marry her daughter,” the former Disney star told guests. “So to be here tonight with all of you, the people who have helped shape who she’s become, means the world to me. And all of you embracing me with such open arms. It’s just unbelievable, so thank you for that. Tonight is about celebrating and spending some time together.”
The four-month old government of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) may present its second mini-budget to the Parliament in early January, as the current level of fiscal deficit was not sustainable, said Finance Minister Asad Umar on Wednesday.
“Yes, there is a proposal to increase taxes and tariffs but nothing has been finalised yet,” said the minister, while giving a briefing to the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue on the state of negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
He also disclosed that Pakistan has secured $3 billion loan from Saudi Arabia at 3.18% interest rate. The Saudi oil facility on deferred payments will also become effective from next month when Pakistan will start receiving $274 million oil on a monthly basis.
“The money bill, most probably, will be presented to the Parliament in early January,” said Umar, without disclosing the tax measures his government will impose on the people.
He briefed the committee about the pace of economic reforms, suggested by the IMF in return for providing a second bailout package in the last five years. The minister said the fiscal deficit at the current level was not sustainable, which was one of the concerns of the IMF.
It will be the second mini-budget by the PTI government after presenting the first one in September this year, suggesting ad-hocism in economic policymaking. After the first mini-budget Umar had assured that the fiscal crisis was over and now his government’s focus would be on overcoming the external sector crisis.
After the committee meeting, the finance minister said the mini-budget is being prepared in light of the recommendations given by the Economic Advisory Council. Responding to a question whether the government should wait for the next fiscal year’s budget, the minister said there was no need to waste time.
The poor performance of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has forced the government to take the politically costly decision of bringing the second mini-budget.
The pace of reforms suggested by the IMF will be inflationary and could create problems, as in some countries this even led to riots, said Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Senator Sherry Rehman, member of the standing committee, while commenting on Umar’s briefing.
“At a time when it is extremely difficult for the poor people to meet both ends, questions will be raised about which international agency has directed to bring the mini-budget,” said Senator Rehman after the committee meeting.
During his briefing to the senators, the finance minister said there were political and economic consequences of the pace of reforms suggested by the IMF.
“I will not bank on IMF alone and part of the reason is the political consequence that Senator Sherry Rehman pointed out,” he said, while sharing views of the senator.
Further increasing the pace of adjustments is not in the interest of Pakistan and it may lead to crash landing of the plane, he said, adding, “The IMF wants fast track pace of reforms but we want safe landing of the plane.”
Senator Rehman also raised the issue of currency devaluation. She said fluctuation of Rs10 in the value of rupee against the US dollar in a single day rattled the markets and also gave an impression that the government was implementing free float exchange rate regime.
However, the minister said the November-30 exchange rate movement did rattle the markets but there should be economic matrix to gauge people’s confidence instead of making drawing room conversations as a measure of market trust.
He said from December to July there was devaluation of Rs3 per month on an average, which slowed down to Rs2 per month from August to December of the current year. Rs143 to a dollar was more of theoretical rate as no major transaction was settled at this rate on November 30, he remarked. SBP Governor Tariq Bajwa told the committee that transactions worth only $2 million were settled, which makes up hardly 1% of the total daily trading volume.
The minister said the final decision on the exchange rate value rests with the central bank but the finance ministry and the SBP work closely with each other.
“The SBP governor is making correct decisions,” said Umar, while posing his confidence on Bajwa.
While referring to the November 30, episode, the minister said the central bank governor had informed him that the spread between the open market and interbank market was widening and there was a need to take some corrective measures.
“My view was that there should not be big movement but the governor said that it would not work,” he said, adding the governor only informed me that there will be movement in the exchange rate market but he did not tell me the quantum and timing of the adjustment.
Umar said that he also informed the prime minister that there will be movement in the exchange rate market but did not inform him about the extent and timing of the devaluation.
“Since December, the SBP has adjusted the value of the currency six times and every time it has been done in consultation with the federal government,” said Bajwa. On November 30, when we gave message to the market to devalue the currency it overreacted on expectation of major adjustment, he added.
The Minister for Finance said it was wrong to say that the government has not taken corrective actions. It has made biggest fiscal and monetary adjustments outside the IMF programme.
He said as a result of these measures, the current account deficit is expected to narrow down from $19 billion to $12.5-13 billion by the end of this fiscal year.
We have already arranged $12 billion to fill the financing gap and are not in a hurry for an IMF programme, said the minister.
He said Pakistan will pay 3.18% interest rate on the $3-billion Saudi Arabia loan. From next month the Saudi oil facility on deferred payments will become operational and Pakistan will receive $274 million oil on deferred payments per month, he said, adding talks with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and China were underway. Pakistan will get commercial loans from China, he added.
Meghan Markle's estranged father Thomas pleaded with his daughter to get in touch , saying the rift caused by her marriage to Prince Harry "can not continue for ever". To a TV anchor he told that he was hopeful something will be resolved, this can not continue forever.
He said, he did not plan to be silent for the rest of his life, he would really appreciate if she just called him. Markle revealed he had not spoken to hisdaughter since they fell out in the build up to her wedding to Prince Harry last May.The 74-year old missed the event due to heart surgery, amid a furire after he was found to have received payment for staged paparazzi photographs.
He ended up watching the wedding from California, with Prince Charles taking his place and walking Meghan down the aisle. The couple are expecting their first child next year, andsoon to be a granfather Markle said he was hoping that everything will go well and I get to see a little Meghan or Harry.
There has to be place for me, I am her father.
Meghan, the Dutchess of Sussex, has faced a barrageof negative headlines in recent weeks over her relationship with royal staff. He father ran to hisdefence, telling GMB that she had alwaysbeen controlling, but she had never been rude, she had always been polite.
Islamabad police has registered a case against a man for threatening and beating a woman in a video which went viral on social media. The video of the incident, shows a man identified as Wasif Abbasi threatening and thrashing a woman. People expressed anger over the video as Abbasi not only made the woman kneel before him but used pistol to threaten her and beat her in the end.
The people called for action against Abbasi, Islamabad police located the woman and inquired her about the incident before registering a case in Ramna police station.
The woman said in the First Information Report (FIR) that Wasif was her university fellow and was threatening her after she
refused to marry him.She maintained that she can not even attend university as Wasif chases her and has threatened her and her friends several times in the past.
Police said Wasif is out of the country and will be arrested upon his return. Police further added Abbasi isalso the leader of a gang comprising boys from Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The members of the group aresaid to be involved in selling drugs and other criminal activities.
Carrying a bold message of inclusion, transgender rights and a sharp rebuke to US President Donald Trump, Miss Spain’s Angela Ponce is blazing a trail as the first transgender contestant in Miss Universe’s 66-year history.
The willowy beauty is making history since the pageant reversed a longstanding policy in 2012 that participants must be “naturally born” women.
Explaining her broad appeal the plain-speaking 27-year-old says “who hasn’t suffered from prejudice? Who hasn’t had to deal with bullying?”
Outside the walls of Miss Universe —whose finals will be held early Monday in Thailand’s capital Bangkok —the transgender community continues to be marginalised and misunderstood, with high rates of suicide.
A leaked White House report said President Trump’s administration is considering pushing changes to the law to define gender by biological traits at birth, while trying to block transgender people from military service.
Ponce is defiant about how to respond to Trump, a former owner of Miss Universe, and others who would try to box her in by physical traits.
“I always say: having a vagina didn’t transform me into a woman. I am a woman, already before birth, because my identity is here,” she told AFP, gesturing to her head.
She also took issue with the classification of trans people by large sections of society based on prejudice and narrow assessments of gender.
“Outsiders say what I can and cannot do, what I am and what I am not,'” Ponce said.
First transgender model crowned Miss Spain, to compete in Miss Universe 2018
“No, I’m sorry. To be a woman is your identity. It doesn’t matter if you are white, black, if you have a vagina… if you have a penis.”
Ponce, who works with a foundation in Spain helping children struggling with stigma linked to being trans, is aware of the visibility she brings to the Miss Universe platform.
Her performance has so far drawn praise, from her portrayal of a flamenco dancer during the national costume portion of the competition to her strut down the runway in a shimmery mermaid-like gown in the evening dress category.
You can empower yourself like I have and turn something negative into your biggest strength,” she said.
“Children are born without prejudices and I think that if we talk to them about diversity from a young age… we can create a new generation of human beings who are raised a lot better, more tolerant and respectful.”
This year’s event, which critics say is a throwback to stereotypes of the the pre #MeToo era, has largely preached a message of inclusivity.
It boasts an all-women panel of judges made up of business leaders and former Miss Universe titleholders.
But gaffes still abound — Miss USA Sarah Rose Summers got in hot water for appearing to mock the contestants from Vietnam and Cambodia on social media for not being able to speak English.
She has since posted an apology on instagram, saying she did not “intend to hurt” her fellow competitors.
Monday’s event will see last year’s winner Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters of South Africa crown her successor among 94 countries in a live televised event hosted by American comic turned TV host Steve Harvey and supermodel Ashley Graham.
Google's CEO Pichai explained why photos of United States President Donald Trump surface on the search engine when a user searches for the word 'idiot'. Speaking in front of the House Judiciary Committee, he elaborated that company does not manually intervene in search results and that "search results are based on crawling the content of web pages". "We provide search today for any time you type in a keyword. We, as a Google, have gone out and crawled stored copies of billions of their pages in our index, we take the keyword and match it against the pages and rank them based on over 200 signals." Pichai maintained.
Things like relevance, freshness, popularity, how other people are using it. And based on that, you know, at any time, we try to find the best results for that query, he added.
The House committee's session was held to discuss whether the search engine's results were politically slanted. It has also been revealed that the 'idiot' search result page was due to third parties' "Google bombing" the president. A similar incident was reported during the presidency of George W Bush. In the mid-2000, Bush's photo popped up whenever some one searched for " miserable failure".
A female judge on a Saudi Arabian talent show has sparked outrage after embracing the contest’s winner during the televised final in the country, Mail Online reported.
Ahmad Gaseri was named the winner of ‘Najem Al Saudia’ (Star of Saudi Arabia) over the weekend.
But Waed – a 41-year-old singer who is one of the pop idol-style show’s judges – were criticised on social media after she congratulated him with a hug.
Egypt probes images of naked couple atop pyramid
The clip of Waed, whose real name is Hanan Baker Younis, embracing Gaseri and touching his cheek quickly lit up social media in the kingdom.
Many were shocked and outraged and accused Waed – who was dressed in a white T-shirt and full, brightly coloured skirt – of violating Saudi Arabia’s values.
وعد تحضن الفائز بـ نجم السعودية pic.twitter.com/Q17RvIOe9a
— ٰ (@salemalshehri1) December 9, 2018
A German police officer who has been dubbed "the most beautiful in Germany" has been told to decide whether she wants to remain in law enforcement or go into modelling. Adrienne Koleszar,34, a police officer from Dresdan, in Saxony, was named, Germany's hottest policewoman' two years back. '
Loleszar has since become an Instagram model and influencer, with 557, 600 followers who praise her for her good looks. Earlier this year she was given a sez-month unpaid leave from local force, to return to service as a policewoman next year.
Over the past six months she has delighted her followers with images of herself from all over the world, as she has spent her time off travelling and pursuing her social media influencer career.
"I will not receive any compensation from the Free State of Saxony, live on my savings and on my social media activities, she told her followers in a video posted earlier in July.
Following a meeting with her superiors this week, she hasbeen told she must return to work full time in January or quit. The state of Saxony in need of police officers and are currently looking to fill 1,000 positions in the force. Koleszar said she would like to do both, but that you can not get everything you wish in life. She has until Monday to decide whether she wants a career as a police officer or as a fitness model on social model.
