Islamabad : Nov 11 : Pakistan’s most notorious businessman and chairman Associated Group , Iqbal Z Ahmad , was Saturday arrested with his two sons when an accountability court rejected their plea for extending bail in a Ra 29 billion corruption case.
Iqbal Z Ahmad is Pakistan’s most notorious charter and he is always a central cheater of each mega corruption scam. He has caused irreparable loss to the national exchequer through shady deals. He was known for buying the corrupt officials of PPIB, OGRA , SSGC and OGDCL . He is considered experts in using retired army officers to protect his dirty businesses. The list of many retired senior army officers who were his facilitators in making ill-gotten money has published more than once in the local media, but he managed to bush up all the reports of his mega corruption as he used his dirty money to buying the owners of media houses. He would managed to expel any journalist from any media outlet in Pakistan whom he failed to buy.
Two sons of the businessman — including Fasih Iqbal – who the chairman of the Associated Group — are also among those arrested in the case. A reference under the Money Laundering Act was filed against Ahmed, which was approved by the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) then-chairman in December 2013.
Iqbal Z Ahmed, who is known as a dubious entrepreneur in Pakistan, is the owner of several companies including the Jamshoro Joint Venture Limited which also was in the centre of a multi million dollar gas processing scam. He was jailed in JJVL shady deal for gas processing from a Sindh based OGDCL field.
The businessman was booked in the case after transactions worth billions of rupees were made from his companies in other countries including the United Kingdom, the reference read.
Ahmed’s name has surfaced in multiple graft cases through the years including the Rs22 billion Rental Power Projects (RPPs) reference in which the anti-graft watchdog had booked then-prime minister and now Speaker of National Assembly Raja Pervez Ashraf.
In November 2014, Ahmed had obtained a stay order against the proceedings conducted by NAB.
In another graft case about an LPG deal by the Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDCL) in October 2013, NAB informed the media about recovering more than Rs2.28bn in cash from officials and private players, which also included the head of the Associated Group.
Iqbal was accused of making illicit transactions through a money exchange, while he was already embroiled in the rental power projects scam in 2013. He had allegedly sent Rs1.74bn abroad to get foreign exchange to make payments for his own companies and those of others.
