Judicial magistrate East Sobia Aftab remanded 3 arrested directors of AKD security into FIA’s custody for five days.

Muhammad Farid Alam, Chief Executive Officer

KARACHI: The sleuths of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Monday raided the offices of the Aqeel Karim Dhedhi Group (AKD Group) and took into custody three directors on charges of multibillion rupees scam in sale of shares to Employees Old Age Benefit Institution (EOBI).
Top officials of the AKD Group, EOBI and a textile mill are accused of stock market manipulation to earn illegal gains and deliberately causing losses to the state-run pension fund.
The FIA has detained AKD Securities’ CEO Farid Alam, Director and Head of Equities Tariq Adam Ghumra and Director Muhammad Iqbal, in a move that has sent shock waves in the financial industry.
“All three of them are accused of causing billions of rupees worth of losses to the national exchequer,” said FIA Deputy Director Kamran Ataullah.
“The accused created hype in the stock market to fraudulently push up the share price of the Faisalabad-based textile company Amtex far beyond its actual value before selling its shares to the Employees Old Age Benefit Institution (EOBI),” Ataullah said.
The trades by EOBI were made in 2010 at the time of initial public offering of Amtex. About the fact that it took so long for the authorities to take action, a senior FIA official said the whole cycle of events took place between 2009 and 2010 after which an inquiry was initiated against the accused.