It is said that white collar crime is difficult to detect because the criminals are smooth operators and have deep and wide tentacles spread at all the right places. It takes months, sometimes even years and decades to trace out the culprits who commit white collar crime. But as the phrase goes, crime doesn’t pay, most criminals are brought to the book if the authorities and security agencies are vigilant and efficiently doing their job.

Former Chief Minister Punjab and Leader of the Opposition Shehbaz Sharif, who is being investigated for nearly three years now for the alleged money laundering worth billions of rupees, is finally on the verge of getting indicted by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and National Accountability Bureau (NAB) who have reportedly seized solid evidence and have marked the key suspects involved in the scam, Bol News has learnt.

According to the details shared with this scribe, the investigating authorities have claimed that in twenty fake accounts, transactions amounting to Rs 25 billion were conducted between 2008 to 2018 to Shehbaz Sharif his sons Hamza Shehbaz and Suleman Shehbaz’s accounts and they have the evidence in the form of documents and a clear money trail is present as well.

 

Who is Masroor Anwar?

The NAB has detected many such transactions between 2008-2018 in which one Masroor Anwar deposited huge amounts worth millions and millions of rupees in Shehbaz Sharif’s account.

Majority of the deposit slips of these transactions have the name of the depositor mentioned on them while on some of them, the names of respective bank officials are mentioned. The remaining slips have been signed by an unidentified person. However, in all transactions, the ID card used belongs to Masroor Anwar.

For instance, on 9th February 2010, Rs one million were deposited  in Shehbaz Sharif’s Habib Bank Muslim Town branch. “The name of the depositor was not mentioned on the deposit slip which was the against standard operating procedure of the bank,” a senior NAB official told Bol News. “W.hen we asked the bank about the identity of the depositor, they gave us the ID card of Mr Masroor Anwar who was submitting these amounts in Shehbaz Sharif’s account.”

Sources said that the exact relationship between Masroor Anwar and Shehbaz Sharif has not yet  been ascertained by the investigation authorities and the reasons why he was depositing such heavy amounts in the personal accounts of the then chief minister.

“Only Shehbaz Sharif could answer this question. But despite repeated reminders and queries, he has failed to give any details about the identity of Masroor Anwar to either the courts or to NAB and FIA,” the sources said.

According to NAB sources all of this money came as commission from fake companies who cannot be traced now.

Sources further added that Shehbaz, who is currently on bail in Pakistan, is making lot of efforts to dodge and run from this case of money laundering but is likely to be pinned down and indicted by the authorities now. It is also being said that, in a desperate attempt to escape his arrest on the charges of massive money laundering, Shehbaz is trying his best to strike some sort of a deal with the government or the powers that be but the move is likely to backfire.

To quote Senior PPP Leader Barrister Aitizaz Ahsan, “Ït is a Sharif doctrine that if they make money, they also spend it on development works.

 

Who is Gulzar Ahmad Khan?

An FIA official said that the court has been informed that the investigating authorities have gathered the names of the individuals on whose names the fake accounts have been operational. In all, there are twenty individuals who have been receiving huge amounts in their respective accounts.

Senior officials maintained that when they initiated the probe into Ramzan Sugar Mills and Al-Arabia Sugar Mills, it came to their notice that massive amounts of money was transferred into the account of one Gulzar Ahmad Khan at regular intervals..

“When FIA tried to track down Gulzar, it was learnt that he passed away on February 7, 2015,” a senior FIA official disclosed and added that Gulzar’s son Shakeel Ahmad Khan has recorded his written statement with the FIA. Shakeel Ahmad is currently working as a waiter at one of the restaurants in Jhelum, drawing a salary of Rs 25,000.

In his statement, Shakeel said: “In January 2011, I started working at Ramzan Sugar Mill at Rs 6,500 per month. My father Gulzar Ahmad Khan worked as a peon at Ramzan Sugar Mills for 20 years and retired in 2014. In 2013, I was sacked from Ramzan Sugar Mill and currently I am residing in Jhelum and have no idea about my father’s Silk Bank, Peco Road Branch account,”

When FIA inquired about the presence of money in his father’s account, Shakeel said he and his family are poor people and still live in a rented house and they have no property whatsoever in their name.

When FIA showed Shakeel Rs 4,038,000 transaction from his father’s account on March 25, 2015 after his father’s death, Shakeel said neither he nor anyone in his family are aware of this transaction and have no idea where the money has come from. During the investigation he also submitted the death certificate of his father.

A senior FIA official told Bol News that these are the billions about which the PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif could not tell how it reached his account or the accounts of his sons Hamza Shehbaz and Suleman Shehbaz.

Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Accountability, Barrister Shahzad Akbar, speaking to Bol News, said Shehbaz didn’t answer these questions during the entire probe conducted by NAB and FIA and also failed to answer the queries put up by the courts. “All these documents which you have are the ones submitted in the court by us. They are official and genuine banking documents and these stamps on the documents are actually the attestation of bank officials, affirming the facts that this and this person deposited this much amount,” Akbar said.

He went on to add that Masroor Anwar withdrew billions of rupees from Gulzar Ahmad Khan’s account even after his death. “Gulzar was a peon in Ramzan Sugar Mills whose salary was Rs15,000. But more than Rs 300 million worth of transactions have been made in his account,” Akbar said. “We managed to trace that the money in Gulzar’s account was deposited in forms of cheques by one Aurangzeb Butt who in the bargain was made chairman of the ‘city beautification committee’ in Lahore and all deputy commissioners and assistant commissioners were made his subordinates.”

Akbar further said that accountability is a long and painful process and they are trying to get to the bottom of this money laundering case and its trails. “We have to decidewho is to be finally made accountable and keeping in view our prosecution and our judicial system and time constraints that we have, we are trying to complete our investigations now and present in the courts. To-date Shehbaz Sharif hasn’t submitted a single reply to these documents or related queries, but when all of these witnesses will appear before the court, he (Shehbaz) and his sons will have to answer them,” Akbar maintained. “But “let me tell you very clearly, we will not shy away from accountability and if they think that we will stop these corruption cases or halt the probe into these scams, they are living in a fool’s paradise because the PTI government is determined to expose the culprits, Akbar concluded.

 

Shehbaz Sharif’s reply in court

On September 4, 2021 during the hearing of the Rs25 billion alleged money-laundering case in a banking court, Shehbaz Sharif said that this case of the FIA is exactly the same made against him by NAB. “I am not a director of Ramzan Sugar Mills nor have I received any salary from the mill,” Shehbaz said. The PML-N President said his actions during his tenure as Punjab chief minister, in fact, caused a huge loss to Ramzan Sugar Mills instead of giving any benefit to it.

On January 20, the accountability court granted a one-time exemption to PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif from personal appearance in the money-laundering case and in the case of building assets beyond his means and of his other family members. This exemption was granted to Shehbaz by the court as he could not appear in the hearing due to Covid and the court was adjourned till January 27.

Meanwhile, Shehbaz’s son Hamza also appeared before the court and withdrew his acquittal application in Ramzan Sugar Mills reference. Hamza had earlier moved the application seeking acquittal under the new NAB ordinance.

When Bol News contacted PML-N’s Secretary Information Marriyum Aurangzeb and Senior leader Atta Tarar they couldn’t be reached for their comment on these development and the results of the probe carried out by FIA and NAB..

 

 

Transactions made by Masroor Anwar to Shehbaz Sharif’s account:

On June 21, 2012, through slip number 659806, Masroor Anwar submitted Rs 30 million to Shehbaz Sharif’s account.

On June 25, 2012 through slip number 0071626, Masroor again transferred Rs 10 million into Shehbaz Sharif’s account

On December 19, 2012, through slip number 0249767 Masroor Ahwar deposited Rs10.7 million in Shehbaz Sharif’s account.

On November 24, 2014 Maroor, through a cash cheque (4451859) deposited Rs19 million in Shehbaz Sharif’s account

On April 14, 2015, through slip number 3134412, Masroor again transferred Rs 5 million to Shehbaz Sharif’s account.

On May 4, 2015, through slip number 314000, Rs14.8 million were transferred by Masroor into in Shehbaz Sharif’s account.

On June 30, 2015, Masroor, through slip number 412201, again deposited Rs 20 million in Shehbaz Sharif’s account

On April 14, 2017 Masroor, through slip number 2720445, again transferred Rs 4.7million into Shehbaz Sharif’s account.

On April 17, 2017 Masroor again deposited Rs10 million in Shehbaz Sharif’s account through slip number 2720446.

On April 27, 2017, Rs1.64 million were ranfserred by Masroor Anwar into Shehbaz’s account through slip number 2720484.

On March 27, 2018 Masroor deposited Rs2.272 million in Shehbaz Sharif’s account through slip number 602954.

 

Transactions made by Masroor Anwar into Hamza Shehbaz and Suleman Shehbaz’s accounts:

On June 30, 2011 Masroor submitted Rs3 million in Hamza’s account through slip number 292304.

On December 18, 2012, through cheque number 4451051, an amount of Rs10.7 million was withdrawn from Shehbaz Sharif’s account and deposited in Hamza Shehbaz’s account.

On February 1, 2013, Masroor deposited Rs 5.3 million in Hamza’s account through slip number 0337383

On January 6, 2015, through slip number 272644, Masroor again deposited Rs2.8 million in Hamza’s account.

On February 27, 2015, Rs 3 million were deposited into Hamza’s account by Masroor through cheque number 7728424.

May 7, 2015 Rs 9.3 million were deposited by Masroor in Hamza’s account.

On September 11, 2015, through slip number 219460, Rs 2.8 million was transferred by Masroor in Hamza’s account.

On October 28, 2016, through slip number 9329881, Masroor transferred Rs25 million into Hamza’s account

On June 30, 2011, Rs 65 million were submitted to Suleman Shehbaz’s account through open cheque

On June 25, 2012 Rs10 million were submitted to Suleman’s account.