AVP defrauded billions in crime worthy of Hollywood thriller

ISLAMABAD: A crime that may sound like the plot of a Hollywood movie but is as real and close to home as can be. Four men led by an Assistant Vice President of the National Bank of Pakistan, responsible for investments running into billions of rupees, defrauded her bank and client withdrawing large amounts from the Abandoned Property Organization’s (APO) account.

The APO was established after 1971 to manage assets of former citizens from what was previously East Pakistan. Through the APO and a board of trustees chaired by an additional secretary of the cabinet division, the government of Pakistan continues to manage the assets.

With investments of approximately Rs. 50 billion half of which is held as cash, the APO had invested most of the amount through the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) where Assistant Vice President Sadaf Siddiqui was responsible for the investments.

To make her scam work she took on four employees from the APO, Mohammed Ahmed, Liaquat Ali, Imtiaz and Basit.

With the help of the four APO employees, Ms. Siddiqui prepared fake Pakistan Investment Bonds and encashed them against the APO investments.

While the bank reported irregular transactions to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) of about Rs. 1.5 billion; APO sources are afraid the defrauded amount could run as high as Rs. 6 billion.

The four men involved in the crime have already been sent to jail, while Sadaf Siddiqui is also being held under judicial remand as the investigation unfolds.

Not the first, Nor the largest

During investigations, FIA officials expressed suspicions that there may be other fraudulent activities taking place with regards to investments into government securities being managed by the National Bank.

In recent years, NBP has faced multiple scandals. In 2014 NBP’s operations in Bangladesh suffered losses running into billions and while it was initially termed to be the result of ‘lax management’ by the bank’s Board of Directors after investigations it was confirmed as fraud.

Earlier in 2016, one of the bank’s regional officers in Mardan was found embezzling funds from the prime minister’s youth business loan scheme, while employees at a branch in Muzaffargagh were found involved in swindling pension funds.

Those in the know about the bank’s top-management issues say the root of the problems at NBP lie elsewhere, but for the AVP and the many NBP employees before her found guilty of fraud, the lesson remains the same.

In the end, crime doesn’t pay.