Nine bank accounts of Chinese firms, individuals frozen for 'fraud'.

KARACHI -- A local accountability court has allowed a request of the anti-graft watchdog seeking freezing of nine bank accounts of two Chinese companies and four individuals for allegedly cheating the public of Rs1.1 billion through fraudulent investment schemes.

In its Nov 2 order, Accountability Judge Court-IV Mukesh Kumar said that suspicious accounts operated in the names of two companies - Gold Transmit Network Technology (Pvt) Ltd and Green Apple Super Market (Pvt) Ltd - and by four Chinese individuals be frozen.

The judge noted that since the companies or suspects had not filed any objection to the court proceedings, therefore the application filed under Section 12(C) of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999, pleading to ratify the decision of the director general, NAB, Karachi, seeking attachment of these accounts is allowed.

On March 17, the NAB director general issued directives for freezing nine bank accounts used by these companies and individuals to receive 'proceeds from the commission of the offences'.

Court allows NAB plea after it emerged over Rs1.1bn deposited in these accounts

The bureau estimated that over Rs1.1bn had so far been transferred to these accounts.

NAB identified the suspects as Chen Jian Yong, Yu Rong Hua, Chen Zhi Wei and Wang Guo Hai. It said the Chinese firms and individuals were maintaining their accounts in four private banks' branches in Karachi and Lahore.

In January 2019, the anti-corruption watchdog initiated an inquiry on the complaint of Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) that had found these firms to be involved in cheating the public at large through Ponzi, pyramid, multi-level marketing (MLM) and other online schemes.

Investigation officer (IO) Ghulam Abbas in his report said that court notices, issued to the suspects on May 17, had been forwarded to the director general (China desk) at the foreign ministry, so that the same...