KARACHI - Federal Investigation Agency Saturday declared former President Asif Ali Zardari, Faryal Talpur and 20 others as absconders in a money laundering case.

The FIA submitted an interim challan in the court of District Judge (South) Imdad Khoso, declaring absconders 22 accused, including PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, his sister Faryal Talpur, Zardari’s business partner Anwar Majeed, his son Abdul Ghani Majeed.

The investigation officer mentioned in the interim challan that during the course of enquiry into suspicious transactions regarding 29 accounts, it was established that one of the 29 accounts in the title of A-One international sole proprietorship firm purportedly in the name of Tariq Sultan was subsequently used to place illegitimate funds for money laundering.

The purported account holder, Tariq Sultan, denied to have opened the said account.

In view of the denial of Tariq Sultan, handwriting opinion corroborated his version and the signatures on bank documents were established to be fake and forged.

According to the challan, the bank account that was opened in the name of A-One International, owned by Tariq Sultan, revealed that Kiran Aman, the then operations manager, had admitted and verified the fake/forged signatures of the account holder as genuine with mala fide intention.

Noreen Sultan, the then relationship manger, had admitted the forged signatures of the account holder on annexure for change of signatures other than the CNIC and Adeel Shah Rashidi, the then branch manager, had signed KYC and related documents for approval of account opening.

Addel Shah Rashidi disclosed the documents were sent to corporate department for approval/consent.

Corporate Head Taha Raza sent back the documents with remarks “referred by Hussain Lawai” and issued directions to open the account. Hence it is established that bankers had opened fake/forged accounts fraudulently.

Noreen Sultan, Adeel Shah Rashidi and Kiran Aman disclosed that Omni Group accountant Arif Khan was operating the said fake account which was also verified as per KYC that these accounts belonged to Omni Group.

It also transpired that Omni Group CFO Aslam Masood had provided the filled-in account opening form duly signed for opening the forged account.

Aslam Masood and Arif Khan are authorised signatories of accounts of Agro Farms Thatta Pvt Ltd the CEO of which is Anwar Majeed.

From the perusal of the account statement, it was found that during a short span of 10 months Rs 4.5 billion were credited and routed through this account.

The district judge accepted the challan and directed the officials concerned to send it to the trail court for further proceedings.

Earlier, the court sent the main accused, former Pakistan Stock Exchange President Hussain Lawai, and Summit Bank Senior Vice President Taha Raza on judicial remand.

On the last date, the investigation officer had claimed the evidences collected against the accused were enough to prove their involvement in money laundering.

He added the bank accounts which were used for illegal money transaction were also to be traced. He requested the court to extend the physical remand of the accused.

The FIA official submitted that no record was provided since the beginning of the investigation in January 2018.

The official submitted that 28 more bank accounts were required to be traced on the pointation of the accused.

He said several people, including Lawai, are being investigated for laundering billions of rupees through ‘benami’ or fictitious bank accounts.

According to the prosecution, the accused were involved in facilitating the opening of 29 ‘fake’ accounts in Summit Bank, Sindh Bank and United Bank Limited.

Billions of rupees were deposited in these fake accounts and subsequently transferred to different accounts, including that of PPP Chairperson Asif Ali Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur’s company, Zardari Group, which was shown to have received Rs 15 million.

The biggest transfer made through the alleged fake accounts was to an Arab national, Nasser Abdulla Hussain Lootah, who is the chairman of Summit Bank board of directors.

The FIA, on July 6, arrested the accused on a mega money-laundering scandal worth Rs 35 billion.