The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in Hyderabad has recovered cash and assets from an ex-Additional District Accounts Officer (ADAO). The assets and cash were over Rs. 1 billion.

Although it was NAB Hyderabad that was in charge of the case, ADAO Mushtaq Ahmed Shaikh was arrested on Friday from Karachi. He has been remanded to NAB’s custody by the accountability court on Saturday in Hyderabad for a period of two weeks.

NAB’s arrest of Mushtaq Ahmed Shaikh has been the side effect of the earlier arrests of ex-police constable Muhammad Yousuf Khan and his son, Arif Yousuf, who was at the time of arrest in active police duty. They had been arrested from Hyderabad on the 26th of February and had vowed to give the names of all those who they had worked for. Shaikh’s is one of the names they gave.

Rizwan Soomro, NAB spokesperson, revealed that after his arrest, the accused in this case led the NAB investigative team to his place of residence, his farm house, the wedding hall that he owns and all the other businesses in Hala of the Matiari district.

A press release by NAB also states that “several properties over Rs. 1 billion were found to be in possession of the accused person that have been acquired and accumulated from proceeds of the embezzlement of government funds, held in his own name and in the names of his close relatives and benamidars (unknown persons)”.

Among the recovered assets and cash are Rs. 17.3 million in cash, more than 37, 000 Saudi Riyals, three kg of gold, papers of two bungalows in the richest part of Karachi, the Defence Housing Authority (DHA), four other plots in DHA and Bahria Sports Karachi, as well as nine vehicles. And that is just from Karachi.

From Hyderabad the team seized three houses and two flats, two other houses and one 45-acre farmhouse in the Matiari district aside from the businesses he had shown earlier, various saving certificates, two expensive wrist watches, 31 cheque books, and hundreds of treasury bills.

The investigation also revealed that it wasn’t just the government Mushtaq Ahmed was involved with when embezzling such large amounts of money and other assets but also bankers from many different banks.

via Tribune