Never in history before such huge recovery has been made by any agency of Government of Pakistan in the case of individuals involved in any financial crime, whether corruption, laundering, drug trafficking, smuggling, etc.
It is pertinent to mention that the name of family was also among the offshore leaks, and in the under reference case of sale of company to a Turkish industrial group, a shell company located in the British Virgin Islands was used by the accused persons to launder the proceeds of crime, ie tax evasion and tax fraud, which are predicate offences under the Anti Money Laundering Act 2010. The Director General Khawaja Tanveer Ahmed declared this a land mark case in the history of FBR, and admired the efforts of I&I-IR team who worked relentlessly on this case. He maintained that keeping the same path, the Directorate General will be able to recover billions of looted money of Government Exchequer.
On 26.05.2017, the Directorate of Karachi received cheques of Rs 6.2 billion of evaded tax in the case of both husband and wife (owners of company) before the Court of the Special Judge Customs, Taxation and Anti Smuggling Karachi. According to details, husband and wife were major share holders in three companies till year 2013. By the end of year 2013 they sold an electronics company (Pvt) Ltd to a BVI company for 3.3 million dollars and dividends of 35 million dollars were remitted to BVI during next three years. Afterwards, in September 2016, all of said referred three companies were purchased by a Turkish company for consideration of US $ 242 million. The sales value of Electronics company (Pvt) Ltd, that was sold at US $ 3.3 million three years ago, in the deal was US $ 94 million. After these suspicious transactions, the authorities traced and attached five bank accounts of couple, having deposits of Rs 19.72 billion. After taking over the case, I&I-IR Karachi gathered the evidences, linked them with each other and immediately lodged an FIR/complaint under section 191A/203 of Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 read with section 3 & 8 of Anti Money Laundering Act, 2010 in the Court of Special Judge Customs, Taxation Karachi. There were certain hearings before the Court of Special Judge, where I&I-IR Karachi through their I.O Muhammad Arif, convinced the Court in favour of their case and finally able to get arrest warrants of both accused. Consequently, the attorney of couple agreed to deposited the evaded amount of tax before the Court. The Special Public Prosecutor undertook on behalf of the Department that subject to the deposit of entire amount ie, Rs 6,204,374,789/-, the Department will withdraw the complaint after getting approval of Higher Authorities. The accused submitted four cheques of entire amount Rs 6.2 billion in the Court. Finally, on 26.05.2017, the Department moved application of withdrawal of complaint under section 22(2) of the Anti Money Laundering Act, 2010 along with Office Memorandum issued by Ministry of Law and Justice dated 22.05.2017 regarding withdrawal of complaint. The attorney and advocate of accused also submitted affidavit in the Court that they will not challenge the proceedings and the tax payment in any court of law.
Accordingly, the Court dismissed the complaint with direction to handover the cheques of Rs 6,204,374,789/- to Directorate of I&I-IR. After recovery of entire amount in favour of Government Exchequer, the accused are entitled to operate their accounts.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017