Combating public frauds

Public frauds involving cheating the masses are widespread in our society. NAB accords high priority to cases of cheating public at large which is also a serious offence under National Accountability Ordinance. Since its inception, NAB has tackled many major scams involving bogus housing/real estate companies, illegal financial companies and fraudulent individuals and groups etc.
Mega scams related to the infamous Cooperative Finance Companies, Forex Companies and most recently the Double Shah fraud case, wrecked havoc in our society. Thousands of people became victims of groups of fraudsters who trusted them with their savings. Sponsors of dubious Housing Societies and Financial Schemes lured the innocent into investing their hard-earned incomes and savings with promises of attractive returns and profits. The economic, social and psychological ramifications of such public frauds on the helpless victims are tremendous and have seriously affected their lives and those of their families.
In the Cooperative Finance Companies (CFCs) scam involving 102 companies, 266000 depositors were deprived of almost Rs 13 billion in the 80s, duly enticed by promises of annual profit up to 40 percent. Since 2000, when NAB was tasked to resolve the cooperative crisis, about Rs 3.0 billion was recovered in cash from the corrupt management of CFCs alongwith an income of Rs 10.6 billion from the sale of over 100 properties. A colossal Rs 8.37 billion has been returned to over 235000/- claimants as principal amount and profit from 15 percent to 70 percent has been paid to the affectees. After completion of 69 investigations, 46 references were filed in Accountability Courts which resulted in 31 convictions, one acquittal and 14 cases are under trial.
The Forex companies scam of 2003 involved 57 companies wherein about 10,000 affectees lost Rs 7.3 billion on the promise of profit up to 4 percent per month or 48 percent per annum. About 2 dozen leading stalwarts of forex companies are in jail. Our Financial Crime Investigation Wing (FCIW) has recovered about Rs.1.7 billion in cash/assets and more cash recoveries from a number of forex companies are in the pipeline through Plea Bargain. Rs. 75 million has been disbursed to 1500 effectees since December 2007.
Punjab was rocked by the worst ever-private financial scam in 2006/2007, the Double Shah Fraud case. Syed Sibt-ul Hassan Gillani, alias Double Shah, his family members, three other independent groups and hundreds of agents and subagents operating in Wazirabad, Gujarat, Sialkot and Sahiwal in 2006, lured about 40,000 persons into depositing about Rs 10.0 billion with promise to double the deposits initially in 15 days. After building public confidence, large cash inflow from new depositors was used to double the money of the earlier ones, hence the game was sustained for over a year. In the process almost Rs 3 billion were siphoned off to Dubai for purchase of real estate.