- Thursday, April 18, 2024
By: Pramod Thomas
A UK agency has confiscated assets worth £500,000 from the safe deposit box of a wanted fugitive.
The UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has seized opulent necklaces, gold, silver and diamond-encrusted Rolex watches from the former partner of Nisar Afzal who was convicted of a role in a £50 million ($64 million) British mortgage scam.
The assets include a gold ring emblazoned with the name “Nisar”, the SFO said.
According to a statement it used a listed asset order, a new tool in its armoury, to seize and forfeit listed assets linked to Afzal, which it believes to be the proceeds of crime.
His former partner had consented to the order, the SFO said.
“This case reinforces our determination to use every tool available to us to prevent those who would bribe, cheat and steal from resting easily on their illicit gains,” said Liz Baker, head of the SFO’s proceeds of crime and international assistance division.
The latest move on Afzal’s assets comes after the SFO last year seized £1.52 million from the sale of two properties in Birmingham, central England, bought by Afzal.
A warrant remains out for his arrest after he fled Britain for Pakistan in the mid-2000s. The SFO alleges he was implicated in a fraud against mortgage lenders, for which his brother, Saghir Afzal, was convicted and jailed in 2011 for 13 years.
Saghir Afzal was sentenced to an additional 10 years for failing to pay a near £30 million confiscation order within six months.
The SFO is a specialist prosecuting authority tackling the top level of serious or complex fraud, bribery and corruption. It was created and given its powers under the criminal justice act 1987 and was established in 1988.
