FIA gets important data in raid on Anwar Majeed’s sugar mill

KARACHI: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Sunday had a huge success by recovering a virtual storage device along with weapons during their raid on the Khoski Sugar Mill in Badin district, owned by the Omni Group.

The device contains useful data on money laundering. A special team of the FIA, assisted by NAB officials and Sindh Rangers, raided the millhours-long operation recovered 11 illegal weapons, computer disks, a virtual storage disk and other documents in connection with the ongoing money laundering scam.

The mill is owned by the Omni Group of Companies of Anwar Majeed and his son Abdul Ghani Majeed who are under custody in the money laundering case. FIA sources said the virtual disk contained useful data on money laundering and all 16 sugar mills of the group.

Credible sources in the investigating agency confided in The News that the team recovered four sub-machine guns which apparently seemed official weapons of Sindh police, seven unlicensed Kalashnikovs from the official guards of mill, 27 hard disks and one virtual disk containing the record of sugar mills owned by the Omni Group.

Sources said during the search operation proofs of massive corruption in the local branch of a bank and other graft cases were also found. No policemen was allowed to move during the operation despite the fact that the police station is situated in the boundary walls of the sugar mill.

The Rangers deployed at the main door stopped the local persons from take photographs. Sources in the sugar mill told this reporter that a number of workers present during the raid were restricted to their respective rooms and some were detained for interrogation.

SSP Badin Hasan Sardar and Deputy Commissioner Asif Jan Siddiqui were not available for their comments on the raid. Sources said though most of the record was destroyed by the mill administration days before the raid, the FIA managed to obtain useful data.

It is pertinent to mention here that a Rs750 million fraud case was hushed up when it surfaced in June 2015. At that time, an FIR was registered against three persons, including two mangers of the mill, on the complaint of Khuda Bux Jamali, the worker of the same sugar mill.

Anwar Majeed, his son AG Majeed and others are being investigated in a case concerning the laundering of Rs50 billion plus through fake bank accounts.

The FIA raid on the mill owned by Nawar Majeed’s Omni Group has raised many an eye-brow, as Majeed is considered to be the most powerful person in the province famous for transfer and postings in the provincial bureaucracy.

FIA sources concluded that the raid was conducted in the light of disclosures made by some arrested persons. In the same case, PPP Co-Chairman Asif Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur have also been summoned on Monday (today) by FIA fourth time and Agency has to submit its progress report on day after tomorrow (Tuesday).