FIA Sindh again includes AKD Securities in EOBI enquiry

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) implicated the employees of AKD Securities Limited in multi-million rupee Employees Old-Age Benefits(EOBI) scam in October 2014 through Enquiry number 34/2014 in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

Director FIA Sindh Shahid Hayat has included the names of AKD Securities on the basis of EOBI directors’ statement that AKD securities was the lead manager of the M/s Amtex Limited shares in 2010.

The name of AKD Securities was not on the list of the culprits, which was submitted to the Supreme Court by the then FIA director general through the Agency’s director for law.

The FIA wrote in its report that the owners of Amcap Securities and M/s Amtex Limited are the same and were living in Lahore at the time of this fraud. The main suspects who sold and manipulated the shares of M/S Amtex were:

• Iftikhar-ud-din founding member Amcap and father of Khurrum Iftikhar, CEO of Amtex
• Faiza Khurrum founding member Amcap and wife of Khurram Iftikhar, CEO of Amtex (also director of Amtex)
• Sajida Shehzad founding member Amcap and wife of Mr Shahzad Iftikhar, director of Amtex (also Director of Amtex)
• Sonia Nadeem, director of Amcap and wife of Nadeem Iftikhar, Director of Amtex.

The FIA Enquiry Report 40/2013 had claimed before the Supreme Court that there is no role of any brokerage house including AKD Securities in the manipulation of M/s Amtex prices as all the brokerage houses released their research reports reflecting the impressive financial growth of the said company in the years 2010-12.

According to the official documents submitted to the Supreme Court of Pakistan by the FIA director general under the constitutional petition No 34/2013, the name of the AKD Securities Limited is not among those linked with the scam. Now the inquiry into the EOBI-Amtex shares case has been completed.

The names of the accused submitted to the court by the FIA director general in the EOBI scam inquiry No. 40/2013 are Zafar Iqbal Gondal, the then chairman of the EOBI, Kanwar Khursheed Wahid, the then EOBI director general for investment, Chief Executive Officer and directors of the M/s Amtex Limited; Aslam Motiwala, chairman of the SAZ Capital, and Amcap directors Khurram Shehzad, his wife Marium Shehzad and his brother Naveed Shehzad.

The counsel for AKD Securities said that the registration of the new FIR and the arrest of the CEO and directors of the AKD Securities Limited after the closure of the inquiry and submission of the final report to the Supreme Court shows a mala fide intent of the FIA, which illegally reopened an inquiry, which had already concluded.

In the new report, the AKD Securities Limited was accused of manipulating prices of the shares of the M/S Amtex Limited, in the FIR and the interim charge sheet submitted by the FIA. The new report also provides details of the share prices at the time of the fraud.

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan initiated an enquiry into the alleged manipulation of share prices, but found no role of the AKD Securities Limited in this transaction, the FIA report said.

The report of the SECP has all the details pertaining to money trail and the beneficiaries. This report has been shared by the SECP with the FIA, but it had concealed the report because of ulterior motives, the counsel said.