Daily Times

Kaveh Moussavi, the CEO of Broadsheet, is no ordinary man. In his profession, which is to trace and catch plunderers of illegal wealth, he’s an artist par excellence. Someone in his profession, which is to catch big-time looters, is expected to have high cheekbones and a sunken thoughtful face. Instead, he has a plump face that one wouldn’t notice twice. But never mind; looks can be deceptive.

Last month Moussavi made headline news. Unabashedly, he absolved Nawaz Sharif and his family of any illegal financial involvement and also tendered a “profound apology” for being part of a “witch hunt” under the pretext of accountability for over two years. Making an unequivocal statement he said, “I have no hesitation in issuing an apology to the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif for having been a part of the sham, the scandalous non-sense masquerading as NAB. It’s a fraud through and through.” In this respect, it places him on a high moral pedestal. But one has to weigh the rather harsh words Moussavi used to describe the NAB. On the other hand, Chairman NAB claims to recover billions of the plundered wealth.

Broadsheet even made a payment of £20,000 to Nawaz Sharif to settle expenses incurred during court proceedings. But Moussavi had already extorted $30 million from the Pakistan government when it lost an arbitration case in an International Court of Arbitration. What he paid Nawaz Sharif is a trivial amount compared to millions of dollars of poor Pakistanis’ money he pocketed by winning an arbitration case at the London High Court. The same case had cost the pure land over $65million.

The poor nation had high hopes that Broadsheet would dig out millions of dollars of looted wealth and return it to Pak kitty.

Broadsheet was hired by NAB during Gen Musharraf’s reign to recover the wealth ostensibly plundered by politicians, bureaucrats and others. While the general is enjoying a life of “rest and recreation” in Dubai and living out of reach of the law of his native land, the country has had to pay millions to Broadsheet ordinarily known as “Thief Catchers”. It also reminds me of the book The Spy Catcher written by Peter Wright, a ranking MI5 operative. Both agencies have been in the profession of hunting fugitives although of varying nature.

However, the poor nation had high hopes that Broadsheet would dig out millions of dollars of looted wealth and return it to Pak kitty. For some unknown reasons, the contract with the company was cancelled. Broadsheet approached a court in the UK and obtained an edict in its favour under which it had to be paid a huge sum of $28.7 million as a penalty for cancelling the contract. The Pak government had no choice but to cough up the amount. Another affiliate of Broadsheet was paid $1.5 million in 2008 for its services. Again, the details of its services were not disclosed to the public or what the public gained out of the contract.

People expect transparency in the conduct of investigative organisations. The NAB has been investigating the case of financial misconduct by the management of Eden Homes in Lahore for the last many years. Reportedly, there are 12,000 people affected by the embezzlement and fraud perpetrated by the housing society revealed in 2013. It’s a pity that when the owner of the society Dr Amjad died recently, he had to be buried with police protection, as the affected people were waving placards at his funeral demanding their money.

As reported by Dawn on April 6, Dr Amjad’s son, Dr Murtaza Amjad who happens to be the son-in-law of former CJP Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, was recently arrested by the Interpol in Dubai as he was wanted by the NAB. But he was released while still in Dubai as, reportedly, the PTI government didn’t provide the necessary evidence required to bring him back to the country to face trial. It’s not to say that the former CJP had any role in obstructing the return of his loving son-in-law to protect him from facing trial.

Former CJP Chaudhry also made his name when he cancelled the Reko Diq contract with Tethyan Copper Company signed with the Balochistan government. The company was to “build and operate a world-class copper-gold open-pit mine at a cost of about $3.3 billion” in the mining area leased to it. Chaudhry considered the contract in conflict with the laws of the country. The company filed a case in the World Bank Arbitration Tribunal in 2012. The tribunal passed the ruling against Pakistan, fixing a $5.97 billion award for cancelling the lease agreement. Which of the two gangs is smarter than the other, the plunderers or those who catch them? Any guesses?

The writer is a Lahore-based columnist and can be reached at pinecity@gmail.com