NAB Evidence Against Shahbaz Sharif Family and Hamza Shahbaz Says About NAB Evidence

Mr Shahbaz, Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, his wife Nusrat Shahbaz and daughters Rabia Imran and Javaria Ali have been summoned by NAB in money laundering and income beyond means investigation.

NAB also has written to the interior ministry to place the names of Mr Sharif’s wife and daughters on the no-fly list.

NAB also asked Nusrat Shahbaz to provide details of sources of funds for acquiring houses — 69-H and 87-H, Model Town, Lahore and Nishat Lodge, Donga Gali, Murree.

During an initial investigation, NAB said, it had found that Shahbaz Sharif and his sons Hamza and Salman had accumulated assets to the tune of Rs3 billion which were disproportionate to their known sources of income. “The suspects in order to justify the acquisition of assets have mentioned foreign remittances worth Rs1.3bn.”

The bureau alleged that most of the remittances were fictitious and the process of remittances was used for “laundering the assets” disproportionate to their known sources of income. NAB said Mr Salman’s “key front man” Mohammad Mushtaq (who is in the bureau’s custody) received fictitious remittances of Rs600 million in his accounts on his (Salman’s) behalf to conceal the origin of funds and subsequently transferred the amount to Mr Salman.

Shahbaz Sharif had skipped NAB’s hearing this week and left for London where he underwent a medical check-up. Mr Salman and Mr Shahbaz’s son-in-law Imran Ali Yousuf, who is wanted in the Saaf Pani Company scam, are also in the UK. Mr Shahbaz said he would return to the country soon.

As per remand documents presented in the court, the NAB stated that the NAB chairman received a report from the Financial Monitoring Unit of the State Bank of Pakistan on January 12, 2018. The report showed a huge volume of suspicious transactions in the bank accounts of Hamza Shahbaz, Shahbaz Sharif and Suleman Shahbaz, following which a money laundering inquiry was started against the Shahbaz family.

The investigations led to the arrest of Qasim Qayyum and Fazal Dad Abbasi. The NAB claimed the evidence collected so far reveals that both the accused provided a channel to the Shahbaz family for laundering the money by arranging false eateries for foreign remittances ostensibly sent by various individuals to their co-accused Shahbaz Sharif, Hamza, Suleman and others.

It was revealed that Qasim Qayyum was running an illegal foreign exchange business at Sadiq Plaza, The Mall, and at Ali Tower, MM Alam Road, from 2005 to 2018. Qasim used to collect cash from the office of Suleman Shahbaz at 55-K, Model Town, Lahore, along with his employees and arranged fictitious foreign remittances (telegraphic transfers) in the bank accounts of the Shahbaz family. Fazal Dad Abbasi is an old employee of the Sharif Family and had been working with Suleman Shahbaz since 2005. He used to collect cash from different sources and handed over to Qasim Quyyum for arranging fictitious foreign remittances in the bank accounts of Shahbaz family. The NAB stated that as per the financial monitoring report, the said transactions were worth billions.