Multibillion-rupee TDAP scam: One accused arrested in Italy

ISLAMABAD: Italian police have arrested a fugitive from the law in Pakistan, Farhan Junejo, who is accused, along with the late Makhdoom Amin Faheem and several others, in a multibillion-rupee scandal involving the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP).

Junejo had been declared a proclaimed offender by a Karachi court, and a red warrant had been issued against him by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for Interpol to apprehend him.

The FIA Karachi chapterand headquarters have got the information about Junejo’s arrest in Italy and are working to get him repatriated to Pakistan through Interpol. Pakistan and Italy have no extradition treaty.

A senior FIA official told The News that the agency was dispatching the requisite documents related to the charges against Junejo to Italy, seeking his return. Nearly two dozen people are accused of embezzling billions of rupees from the TDAP on account of a freight subsidy.

Junejo, who was directly inducted as an assistant commissioner in Sindh by the late Chief Minister Jam Sadiq Ali, and had also worked in Hala, the hometown of the Makhdooms. When Amin Faheem was the commerce minister, he had taken Junejo as his director on deputation. The TDAP falls under the commerce ministry.

The report said that Italy did not have the bilateral extradition agreement as Rome discovered in the Saman Abbas affair. The extradition process for Junejo, the report said, provides that the first hearing is aimed at asking him whether he intends to avoid this procedure and be handed over spontaneously in the specific case to Pakistan, or whether the Italian judiciary should decide it.