The team of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Commercial Banking Circle Karachi said that it has made significant progress in the investigation of a Rs54-billion scam on Tuesday.

Earlier, the FIA's team made several arrests and detained 16 accused in the financial fraud case including officials from the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) and 18 other banks, oil marketing companies namely Hascol and Byco.

Among the detained are eight bank officers and eight petroleum company management personnel.

Among the 16 arrested include Saleem Butt, Tahir Ali, Khurram Shahzad Wenger, Osman Shahid, Nawabzada Akbar Hasan Khan, Reema Athar, Wajahat A. Baqai, Muhammad Saleem Saleemi, Muhammad Asmar Atiq, Muhammad Jamal Baqir, Muhammad Ali Ansari, Saeed Ahmed, Syed Hasan Irtiza Kazmi, Aqeel Ahmed Khan and Muhammad Ali Haroon.

Hascol CFO authorised to take charge after CEO detained

After a long and complicated investigation in FIA Commercial Banking Circle Karachi last year, the case under section 477/471/468/420/409-A/109 PPC r/w 5(2) of PCA 1947 r/w 3/4 AMLA 2010 Amended in 2020, the case charge number 01/2022 was filed in which the founding director of Hascol Petroleum, Mumtaz Hasan, was arrested and 30 official of partners companies including Vitol, Fossil Energy and National Bank were also nominated.

Some 30 officers accused namely, Syed Ahmed Iqbal, Saeed Ahmed, Syed Jamal Baqir, Akbar Hasan Khan, Syed Hasan Irtiza Kazmi, Reema Athar, Muhammad Saleem Saleemi, Wajahat A Baqai, Osama Ghazi, Nabeel Zahoor, Hidayat Shar, Tariq Jamali, Usman Shahid, Shamim Bukhari, Asad Salim, Muhammad Asmar Atiq, Syed Muhammad Akbar Zaidi, Syed Misbah Hussain, Saleem Butt, Mumtaz Hasan Khan, Muhammad Ali Ansari, Abdul Aziz Khalid, Farid Arshad Masood, Tahir Ali, Liaquat Ali, Najam ul Saqib Hameed, Farooq Rahmatullah, Muhammad Ali Haroon, Aqeel Ahmed Khan and Khurram Shahzad.