Woman among three held for bank fraud

The Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) Commercial Bank Circle (CBC) has busted a gang and arrested its three members for tampering with cheques to withdraw cash fraudulently from a private bank account.

Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, CBC Additional Director Altaf Hussain said Dubai Islamic Bank Pakistan Limited’s (DIBPL) Fraud Risk Management Unit (FMU) Manager Abdul Baseer Pasha and University Road Branch Manager Azim Raza Rizvi lodged a complaint on November 7, 2017, and requested an investigation into two fake cheques used for the withdrawal of cash from the account of Laila Ali Khan and Sher Ali Khan at the DHA Phase-VI branch of the bank.

He added that the bank officials told the FIA that the customer had registered a complaint at the DHA Phase-IV branch and claimed that two cheques of two million each were deposited in an account of the bank’s University Road branch, but she had not issued any such cheques to anyone.

Hussain said the FIA started an investigation, during which it was learnt that the amounts had been transferred to the account of Misbah Bibi, who had opened the account on September 13, 2017, on the instruction of Tahir Ahmed alias Taha Ali, son of Muhammad Ikhlas.

He further said that the FIA had come to know that Tahir Ahmed arranged a duplicate CNIC of Laila Ali Khan and hired a woman, Nayyar Sultana Bukhari, who fraudulently changed the ownership of Laila Ali Khan’s mobile number.

The FIA traced Tahir Ahmed and Nayyar Sultana Bukhari by identifying them with the help of CCTV footage retrieved from the DIBPL’s University Road branch at the time of their visit for bank transactions. After their arrest, they told the investigators that details of Laila Ali Khan’s bank account had been provided to them by DIBPL Account Opening Officer Muhammad Amir Khan.

Hussain said Tahir had been arrested and charge-sheeted in similar bank fraud cases before, but he disappeared after obtaining bail. He added that the accused was declared a proclaimed offender by the Special Court (Offences in Banks).

He said an FIR under sections 419, 420, 468, 471, 109 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) had been registered against the three on the complaint of DIBPL FRMU Manager Abdul Baseer Pasha and DIBPL University Road Branch Manager Syed Azim Raza Rizvi at the FIA CBC police station on Tuesday.