ARU Traces Out Unlawful Assets Worth $5.3 Billion From Ten Countries: Shahzad Akbar

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Accountability, Shahzad Akbar Monday disclosed that the Assets Recovery Unit (ARU) has so far traced out unlawful assets worth $5.3 billion (around 700 billion Pakistani rupee) from ten countries.

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 12th Nov, 2018 ) :Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Accountability, Shahzad Akbar Monday disclosed that the Assets Recovery Unit (ARU) has so far traced out unlawful assets worth $5.3 billion (around 700 billion Pakistani rupee) from ten countries.

Addressing a press conference along with Senator Faisal Javed Khan and Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Media Affairs, Iftikhar Durrani held here, Shahzad Akbar said it is for the first time that any government has started illegal assets recovery process to bring the looted money back to our country's economy.

The ARU has traced out these assets through initially probing into the assets which are above worth one million Dollars, however, the assets below this amount will be checked in the next phase, Shahzad Akbar said.

He said out of this $ 5.3 billion, an amount of $ 1.3 billion was directly transferred to other countries through money laundering.

Shahzad Akbar said the unit has traced out 5000 fake accounts so far in which some unknown people are sending huge amount of money.

He said the recovery unit is facing some hurdles due to `Iqama' and those assets which are on the Names of drivers, gardeners, cook etc.

He said Pakistan is the third largest country which possesses three percent real estate in Dubai and London. The properties worth Rs. $15 billion, traced in only Dubai, are the big tool of money laundering.

He said money laundering has left devastating impact on our national economy. Unfortunately the size of our whole economy is equal to the black economy which exists parallel and if the plundered money is added to our economy, it will regain strength.

He said misuse of `Iqama' has become a source of money laundering in the country.

He said there are two types of Iqamas, one the workers from Pakistan possess when they move abroad to earn money and send a big chunk of that money to Pakistani economy in form of remittances while the other type of Iqama is used by the politicians and big names for the purpose of money laundering.

Shahzad Akbar informed that negotiation process is also continuing with Dubai government for sharing details of `Iqama' holders and their assets.

All the countries are showing great cooperation and willingness in sharing the required assets details which reflect their trust on the honest leadership in Pakistan, he said.

To a question about bringing this traced looted amount of Rs 700 billion back to the country's economy, Shahzad Akbar said the difficult task was to trace out this money which is accomplishing successfully.

He said this money will be brought back to Pakistan through fulfilling all legal requirements in the respective countries while the process of freezing accounts has been started.

To another question, he said so far the government has not filed even a single case against anyone in this regard. It was Supreme Court which made JITs to probe into such cases.

To another question about progress on traced illegal assets worth Rs. 700 billion, Shahzad Akbar said we have served the notices and investigation is in process with involvement of all the relevant departments of Federal Investigation Department (FIA), National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and State Bank of Pakistan.

Responding to a question, he explained that these illegal assets belong to ten jurisdictions and Switzerland is not included in it.

Speaking on the occasion, Senator Faisal Javed said crackdown against those having illegal assets will be a great game changer for the country and help restore masses' confidence over the government.

He said no government in the history of our country was honest enough to grab the corrupt involved in money laundering. The present leadership has no such aim of making money but to empower the oppressed segments of society.

He congratulated ARU for tracing out these illegal assets in such a short span of time.

Speaking on the occasion, Iftikhar Durrani reiterated the government stance of continuing the accountability process across the board despite all hue and cries.