Victims discover cost of fake bank accounts in Pakistan
- Banking experts demand ‘exemplary punishment’ for money-laundering mafia using details of lower-income class to operate fake accounts
- One of the many victims was an ice vendor who was brought in for questioning over Rs. 2.25 billion in an account in his name
KARACHI:
Within an hour of the news that Shahid Ali had submitted an application regarding a fake bank account in his name with Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) breaking on TV news,
his landlord arrived and started throwing his belongings out of the house.
“I had seen this in the movies —
how helpless a tenant is when his landlord throws him out of house,” Ali told Arab News. “On Saturday night, I saw it with my own eyes in reality. The victim was none other than myself.”
Ali added that he had briefly contemplated “setting myself ablaze,” he was so distressed. After his neighbors intervened, however, the landlord left the scene, giving Ali one month to vacate the premises.
“My only crime is that I am being robbed through a fake account,” Ali said.
“On the 13th of last month, I received a call from a bank. The officer on the phone informed me that I had taken a loan, a credit card and (had purchased a) Pajero Jeep and was now hiding. I thought it was a prank call so I hung up.” Ali is the father of three children, none of whom finished primary school. He is illiterate himself. He works on daily rates in a local garment factory and lives in the low-income Qur'angi area of Karachi.
After repeated calls from the bank, Ali said he realized that something had gone wrong.
“On October 17,
I went to the United Bank Limited’s (UBL) head office and explained my position, but they insisted that I had opened the account and should pay the outstanding dues.
“I have never opened a bank account in my life and why would you give loan to a person who earns less than Rs 500 daily and rents his house? I asked the officer this, but he insisted and that I had to write an application and submit it, along with a copy of my CNIC (Computerized National Identity Card).”
Ali went straight to the office of FIA’s banking circle to submit an application requesting an inquiry into his case, a copy of which he provided to Arab News.
The bank says it has yet to receive any such application.
“
I only just found out about the case through the media so I cannot discuss its merit,” Ali Habib, an official at UBL told Arab News. “However, I can assure you that UBL is the
most reliable bank, which has strictly adhered to the policies and procedures of the State Bank of Pakistan.”
Ali, however, insists the account in his name is fake, and questions how the bank authorities could open a bank account in his name without him being physically present.
“This incident has taken the peace out of our lives,” Ali said. “Peace was all we had. And now it’s gone.”
Although the case of Abdul Qadir, a resident of Orangi who discovered Rs 2.25 billion in his account last month, differs from Ali’s, Qadir has also fallen victim to extreme stress and depression.
“My mother has asked me to stay at home as she thinks I may be harmed,” Qadir, who earns money selling the popular chilled dessert falooda, told Arab News.
The fake account in Qadir’s name was operational in 2014 and 2015, and
was included in the State Bank of Pakistan’s Financial Monitoring Unit’s Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) to the FIA in 2016.
Qadir was informed about his account by the FIA, which, after thoroughly investigating the case, concluded Qadir is innocent.
However, since news broke of his multi-billion-rupee account, Qadir has also lost the few hundred rupees that he used to earn daily to support his family.
Qadir is the eldest of nine siblings and has lived in Orangi since 1966. Qadir, who has no formal education, worked a number of different daily-wage jobs, before he started selling falooda. Now, he said,
the FIA’s revelations have “deprived me of this last source of livelihood for my family.”
These are just two examples of how the money-laundering mafia have targeted illiterate citizens in Pakistan. But a new discovery on Saturday suggests that
students and academics are not safe either. The FIA announced that they had traced another account to
a student from Larkana, which currently holds Rs 30 million and was documented to have received transactions worth as much as Rs 1.5 billion between 2013 and 2014.
The FIA says it will interrogate the student.
“At this stage, we can’t confirm if the transaction is part of any specific money-laundering scam,” an FIA official told Arab News, on condition of anonymity, when asked about Qadir’s case. The official said the agency is also going to summon
Muhammad Asad Ali, a resident of Jhang district in Punjab province who also discovered unexpected money in an account in his name.
Ahsan Saqid, additional director of the FIA, earlier informed the Supreme Court that the agency has now identified
77 suspicious accounts.
“The state bank of Pakistan (SBP) has
issued strict directives to private banks, which are bound to adhere to its regulations,” Abid Qamar, spokesman of Pakistan’s central bank, told Arab News.
A. B. Shahid, a former banker, says that the SBP has an
anti-money laundering policy that demands strict ‘Know Your Client’ (KYC) implementation.
“This requires the production of a
Computerized National Identity Card, the physical presence of the applicant, and a reference from a reliable current account holder at the same branch, as well as a clear statement of purpose and the estimated amount that he intends to transact. This is monitored for several months,” Shahid told Arab News.
This, Shahid stressed, clearly shows that an account cannot be opened without the consent of the branch manager. “
In cases of fake accounts, the concerned banks or its staff members are active partners of the crime,” he claimed. “If this issue of fake accounts is to be controlled, then those involved should be given exemplary punishments.”
The victims of the fake accounts, unsurprisingly, second this demand.
“I’m neither alive nor dead (but in limbo),” Ali said.
“Why I am being punished for the crimes of fraudsters? Can’t the government take those who have made my life a living hell to task?”
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1384001/world
How EXACTLY does our banking system work? Something def is fishy and sadly our banks and juridical system is run by monkeys!
