By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau said Wednesday that Interpol has issued red notices for billionaire real estate developer Malik Riaz Hussain and his son Ali Riaz, escalating the anti-graft agency’s years-long effort to extradite the pair from the United Arab Emirates to face money-laundering and corruption allegations totaling more than Rs700 billion, or about $2.5 billion.
Lt. Gen. (ret.) Nazir Butt, chairman of the National Accountability Bureau, told reporters in the capital that the notices were issued at the bureau’s request. “Interpol has issued red notices for Malik Riaz in money laundering and corruption cases on NAB’s request,” he said. “We are also taking up this matter with the government of the UAE and our team will bring back Malik Riaz and Ali Riaz soon.”
A red notice is an international alert issued by Interpol, the intergovernmental police organization, asking law enforcement agencies worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a wanted person pending extradition, surrender or similar legal action. Hussain, chairman of Bahria Town Limited, is one of Pakistan’s wealthiest and most influential businessmen. His company has built sprawling gated housing societies across the country, reshaping urban landscapes but also drawing repeated accusations of aggressive land-acquisition practices and the use of state land for private development.
Hussain has consistently denied the allegations, attributing the cases against him to political motives and saying the bureau’s pursuit has caused him significant financial losses. He has not identified who he believes is applying pressure. The elder Hussain, who lives in the UAE, was declared a proclaimed offender in 2024 in the high-profile Al-Qadir Trust corruption case. That investigation centers on allegations that he gifted land to former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife during Khan’s tenure from 2018 to 2022 in exchange for illegal favors. The National Accountability Bureau is also investigating Hussain in several other cases involving money laundering and the development of private housing societies, including projects under the Bahria Town umbrella.
The bureau is currently handling 35 high-profile money-laundering cases overall, Butt said. Hussain and his company have faced legal scrutiny for years. In 2019, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered him to pay the Sindh provincial government for land acquired for the Bahria Town Karachi project. In August 2025, as authorities prepared to auction some Bahria Town properties amid ongoing cases, Hussain appealed for what he called a chance at “serious dialogue and a dignified solution.”
The family’s international legal exposure dates back further. In 2019, Hussain and his son agreed to forfeit £190 million — roughly $250 million at the time — to Britain’s National Crime Agency after an unexplained-wealth investigation. The settlement included proceeds from the sale of a £50 million London mansion. The agency returned the funds to Pakistan, but the money later figured prominently in a separate corruption case involving Khan. Hussain and his son have never been convicted of any criminal offense and have described the British settlement as a civil matter.
In the same news conference, Butt outlined new land and real estate reforms that he said would be introduced with government support within two months. “After these reforms, to be introduced within two months, it will be impossible for housing societies to cheat innocent people who buy property from these societies,” he said. The changes are intended to overhaul regulatory practices, abolish the existing file system for property transactions and place full compliance responsibility on developers.
Butt used much of the briefing to push back against international assessments of Pakistan’s governance and anti-corruption efforts. He described last year’s International Monetary Fund Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment as “highly biased” and “based on baseless data.” “To me, this report is inconsequential,” he said. The IMF report had acknowledged the National Accountability Bureau’s recovery of Rs5.31 trillion — about $18.8 billion — in the 2023-24 fiscal year but noted that the agency secured only 31 corruption convictions between 2022 and 2024, according to its own statistics. It warned of persistent institutional weaknesses and called for a 15-point reform agenda to address corruption risks.
Butt was equally dismissive of Transparency International, which in a 2023 report identified Pakistan’s police and judiciary as among the country’s most corrupt institutions. He called the organization’s data collection “dubious and unreliable” and said both the IMF and Transparency International “will not say anything good about Pakistan despite the historic progress we have made during the last few years.”
The chairman asserted that corruption in Pakistan had declined by 20 to 25 percent in recent years because of the bureau’s work. He cited recoveries of $22.19 billion last year and $10.6 billion in the first three months of the current fiscal year, most of it in the form of state land. “This significant performance underscores NAB’s renewed strategic focus on high-value sectors, improved case management and strengthened inter-departmental coordination,” he said. All recovered funds are deposited directly into the federal consolidated fund, he added, with none retained by the bureau.
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