The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Sunday arrested Mumtaz Hasan, founder of the Hascol Petroleum Limited (HPL), in a Rs54 billion scam.
Director of the agency’s Sindh Zone Amir Farooqi said a total of 30 suspects — including present and former top officials of the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), HPL and other organisations — had been booked in the case and that efforts were under way to arrest the remaining suspects.
The FIA Sindh’s chief described the scam as the “country’s biggest financial fraud” that was committed by the HPC in connivance with the NBP’s top management and those of other commercial banks, who would be investigated separately.
“During the period (from) 2015 to 2020 in the shape of bank loans, funded and non-funded financial facilities were granted to the HPL by the NBP in violation of prudent banking laws, practices, which amount to criminal breach of trust causing wrongful loss to the NBP/national exchequer and wrongful gain to HPL,” said documents seen by Dawn.
