Motorcycle scam case adjourned

LAHORE: An accountability court on Thursday adjourned the hearing of multi-billion MNM motorcycle scam without any development as the accused were not produced before the court due to coronavirus situation. The court adjourned the hearing till June 1. The NAB had filed a reference against more than 30 accused in the scam.

In this case, the accused are allegedly involved in cheating and defrauding the general public by promising them delivery of motorcycles within 45 days after making an investment of Rs 25,000.

The accused include Ehtesham Anwar, Hammad, Saqib, Muhammad Ali, Naeem Khalid, Imtiaz Ahmad, Abdul Majeed, Syed Jamal Fareed, Abid Ali, Muhammad Gulzar, Muhammad Faisal, Muhammad Hussain and Laal Khan. The main accused in the case is Ahmad Sial. The accused had been working as stockists in different cities of the province. They used to collect all money allegedly from innocent people by promising them motorcycles on investing Rs25,000 only.

The main accused, Ahmed Sial, got registered his Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) firm with the Securities Exchange Commissions of Pakistan (SECP) in 2017 and started his business of import and export of spare parts, afterwards the accused in connivance with other co-accused launched a company named M/s Munafa Network Marketing (Pvt) and started receiving hefty amounts from people with the promise of providing them with motorcycles within 45 days.

Meanwhile, hundreds of offices were opened in different cities like Jhang, Bhakkar where thousands of agents collected billions of rupees from the general public just for their own commission of Rs1,000 per motorcycle. Initially, the owners of M/s MNM distributed around 20,000 motorcycles as a confidence-building move to attract more investment.

By smelling the deceitful act, the SECP referred the case of treachery to the FIA, whereas, the case was later transferred to the NAB Lahore in September 2017 keeping in view the magnitude of the embezzlement. The NAB Lahore has so far arrested 25 accused, including Ahmed Sial.