FIA arrests banker Hussain Lawai – close associate of Asif Zardari!

KARACHI: Sources privy to Newspakistan.tv have informed that former head of Summit Bank Hussain Lawai – reportedly a close associate of PPPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari – has been nabbed by FIA.

Hussain Lawai was going to Dubai recently when he was stopped from traveling.  Hussain Lawai, while talking to Media claimed that he was not aware as to why he was stopped from leaving the country. 

However, sources said though his name was not placed on ECL, a number of inquiries were underway since 2015 in connection with suspicious bank transactions/money laundering worth Rs. 35b. 

FIA sources revealed that over 20 ‘benami’ accounts at the Summit Bank were opened in 2013, 2014 and 2015 from where transactions worth billions of rupees’ were made.

According to FIA, transactions of huge amounts of black money – gotten via kickbacks, commissions and bribes – were made via these accounts yet the bank never reported any such activities to FIA or others. 

 In 2015, FIA initiated an inquiry into the case and notices were issued to responsible persons including Hussain Lawai. Savants at the helm of affairs insinuate that after conviction of Nawaz Sharif and his clan, the noose is tightening around the Zardari’s neck. 

According to the pieces of information provided by the sources privy to NPTV, Hussain Lawai, Chairman Central Depository Company, AVP Sindh Bank Mukhtiar and two other bankers were detained by FIA today for interrogation in a money laundering case.

Detained Hussain Lawai and the other bankers are accused of facilitating opening of 29 fake’ accounts in the Summit Bank, Sindh Bank, and United Bank Limited, where ‘beneficiaries of the Sindh government’ had deposited Rs35b.

Sources have informed that the huge amount of Rs. 35b was transferred to different accounts including to Arab national Nasser Abdulla Lootah, who interesting happens to be the chairman of the BoDs of Summit Bank.

 

 

 

 

 

M M Alam

M. M. Alam is a Pakistan-based working journalist since 1981. Karachi University faculty gold medalist Alam began his career four decades ago by writing for Dawn, Pakistan’s highest circulating English daily. He has worked for region’s leading publications, global aviation periodicals including Rotors (of USA) and vetted New York Times as permanent employee of daily Express Tribune. Alam regularly covers international aviation and defense-related events including Salon Du Bourget (France), Farnborough (United Kingdom), Dubai (UAE). Alam has reported thousands of events and interviewed hundreds of people in Pakistan, UAE, EU, UK and USA. Being Francophone Alam also coordinates with a number of French publications.