The Pakistan Post delivered the cheques to the wrong address from where the case was unearthed and brought to notice.

KARACHI: A major case of embezzlement, more than four billion rupees, involving to 30 officials from four different state departments in collaboration with each other, and hundreds of unsuspecting citizens.
 
They filed bogus export claims in the FBR (Income Tax and Sales Tax Depts) where they were approved for refunds and rebates. Afterwards, payment orders were issued to SBP, where officials without fully investigating the file issued cheques for refunds and rebates.

According to the law the address written on the cheque should match the given NIC address, which was crossed out and another address was written in its place.
 
Pakistan Post then played its role in delivering the cheques to the wrong address, from where members of the racket, main accused being Mohammad Amin, who played a major role, went to the bank, which was also involved, to clear cheques into the accounts and gave them withdrawals.  

Commission Officers from Grade 17 to 19 were involved in the racket. The case is an achievement of the FIA (Federal Investigation Agency) who has helped at least 450 people whose NICs were used to register companies. 

‘The Statesmen’ found out about the case when one of the victims approached our correspondent and told him how the FIA had sent him a letter asking him about tax rebate claims filed and received by his company. 

The problem was he didn’t have any company and therefore never filed any tax refund claims. 

That is when the FIA began investigating further. It had initially detected there was something wrong about large claims of tax refunds being filed by different companies. 

So it decided to randomly verify some of those claims, and began sending letters, to some of those who had filed the claims.
 
People involved in the scam were purchasing unused and returned NIC cards from NADRA (National Database and Registration Authority) officials. They then used these NICs to create new bank accounts, register companies and get national tax numbers — all with the involvement of insiders at banks and company registration authorities.

Afterwards, they filed bogus export claims in the FBR as well as the income tax and sales tax departments. All this was done with the collaboration with officials within those organisations.

The federal investigation agency has found that a criminal group has used several departments of the government to steal billions of rupees from the state treasury.