ISLAMABAD: A Chinese investor who lost $13 million dollars is running from pillar to post to get justice against an alleged fraud committed by his Pakistani partners.
In 2020, a Chinese national ZhiCheng Li registered a $13 million fraud’s complaint with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) against his two Pakistani partners. The FIA initiated the inquiry but it was mysteriously stalled without any progress. The investigation agency took up the matter again only to transfer the case from one department to the other.
The FIA Islamabad Zone director transferred the inquiry No 53/2020 to the Anti-Corruption Circle (ACC) from the FIA’s Commercial Banking Circle (CBC) without giving a hearing opportunity to the complainant ZhiCheng Li alias Donald, a foreign investor from Shanghai.
Li travelled several times to Pakistan only to get the case registered with the FIA. According to him, as soon as he furnished all the evidence to establish his case, the relevant director transferred the case to a non-relevant department on the application of the accused.
The FIA director quickly responded to the accused’s application and shifted the inquiry within three days, ignoring the complainant’s request for representation, who had travelled from Shanghai to follow his case, he said.
As per the documents, it traces back to 2015, when China HBP won a contract worth $178 million from the Oil & Gas Development Authority (OGDCL) for supply of processing gas units, LPG Recovery Plant and allied facilities at Nashpa oil field located at district Karak of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The China HBP had a Sole Agency Agreement with a company founded by ZhiCheng Li for Pakistani Market,
In order to execute the project, Li, in partnership with two Pakistanis established the local company with the shareholding — ZhiCheng 45 percent, and the two Pakistanis partners having 45 percent and 10 percent respectively — incorporated with the SECP. Li knew both the Pakistanis since 2004, as he had been exporting solar panels, accessories for motor boots, and fabrics to them.
The company won several other projects in the field of energy and earned sufficient profits that roughly amounted to over $13 million. However, according to Li, all his efforts in winning contracts ended up in losing all his earnings to the hands of different people from public and private sector.
According to him, at the same time, when he was making efforts to win new contracts for the company his Pakistani partners were hatching a conspiracy to capture his entire business by establishing a duplicate entity with the same name and style of the company. The duplicate entity was a partnership firm, registered with the registrar of firms having the shareholdings of the two Pakistanis.
In addition, both Pakistanis also opened a parallel bank account with the title of the company in two private banks using fake affidavits and fake signatures. During this period, most of the payments were encashed through the bank accounts of the duplicate firm, defrauding Li from his share of around $13 million in various projects.
The China HBP made various transactions to the bank accounts forwarded by one the Pakistani partners as CEO of the company — (i) $1,113,211 was remitted to the company, (ii) $525,000 was remitted to the duplicate firm and (iii) $800,000 to pay for the services against contract.
In addition, the accused submitted fake form-29 dated 2-11-2016, to tamper the records of SECP, to reduce ZhiCheng Li’s shareholding from 45 percent to merely one percent. After knowing about this forgery Li filed a complaint with the FIA in October 2017 against the record tampering. However, the FIA after holding the inquiry for three years closed it in 2020 without citing any reason.
Li filed another complaint to reopen the inquiry and furnished all the facts to the new investigation officer. Interestingly, the FIA transferred the inquiry from one department to the other on just one application of the accused, whereas the complainant had been trying for the last six years to get justice but he was denied by the Pakistani investigation agency. According to Li, he has approached all the possible legal forums and investigating authorities, including court, SECP, FIA and NAB but he is still waiting for justice. The News called on the given phone numbers of Li’s Pakistani partners but they did not respond.
When contacted, FIA’s Investigation Officer Mukhtar said the case has been transferred because the accused raised objections to him. It is up to the authority to hand over the case to anyone. To a question about the delay of the inquiry, he said because of the workload the case might have been delayed. When asked why the inquiry was not completed despite passage of more than three years, the IO said initially the case was investigated by another officer and later transferred to him. He, however, said he cannot go into details as the inquiry was still pending.
The News also contacted FIA Islamabad Director Rana Abdul Jabbar who said he could not talk as he was on leave.
