Pakistani tycoon Malik Riaz Hussain’s £190 mn assets in UK seized after settlement

NCA says it seized Malik Riaz Hussain's assets, including a £50 mn property in London's Hyde Park Place, and transferred the money to State of Pakistan.

Malik Riaz Hussain | Photo: Facebook | @MalikRiazBahriaTown

New Delhi: The National Crime Agency (NCA) of UK has agreed to a settlement worth £190 million (Rs 1,500 crore) with one of the wealthiest businessmen of Pakistan, Malik Riaz Hussain.

An NCA statement dated 3 December said it will seize Hussain’s assets including a property in London’s Hyde Park Place, which is worth £50 million, and all of the funds in frozen accounts.

The NCA said the “settlement is the result of an investigation into Malik Riaz Hussain, whose business is one of the biggest private sector employers in Pakistan”. The statement said the seized assets “will be handed over to the State of Pakistan”.

The seized property in Hyde Park London | Photo: Twitter | @NCA_UK

A BBC report claimed that the money has already been transferred to Pakistan through “Telegraphic Transfer”.

The NCA has not yet disclosed the allegations under which Hussain’s assets were frozen.

Hussain took it to Twitter Tuesday to say the “settlement is a civil matter and does not represent a finding of guilt”.

pic.twitter.com/FgYlIQK6yR

— Malik Riaz Hussain (@MalikRiaz_) December 3, 2019

Malik Riaz Hussain is the owner of Bahria Town, Asia’s largest private property developer.

The UK agency had earlier frozen £20 million of Hussain’s funds in December 2018 and eight accounts in August this year. A Westminster court in August ordered that eight of Hussain’s accounts, containing £100 million, be seized as it suspected the money came from “bribery and corruption overseas”.

According to reports, Hussain purchased the Hyde Park property from Hasan Sharif, son of Pakistan’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif who was sentenced to seven years in prison by an anti-corruption court in 2017. Another Pakistani publication had reported that Sharif had sold the property to Hussain in March 2016 just before the Panama Paper leaks surfaced.

In March this year, the Supreme Court of Pakistan had settled for a Rs 460-billion agreement to be paid over seven years from Bahria Town Pvt Ltd for bribing government officials to buy state-controlled land in Karachi.