FIA interim challan in sugar scandal reveals mills, satta agents' nexus

KARACHI: Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Tuesday submitted an interim challan in the sugar scandal, revealing how mill owners and satta mafia earned Rs110 billion through hiking price of the commodity, ARY NEWS reported.

According to the interim challan submitted before a judicial magistrate by the FIA, satta agents in Karachi were communicating through 16 WhatsApp groups and continued to hike the price of the commodity.

“They increased the prices of x-mill rates using their front men and caused an artificial shortage of the commodity to earn an amount of Rs110 billion,” it said.

The report found that satta mafia members in Karachi artificially hiked the sugar prices in the city and created an artificial gap between the demand and supply of sugar in the market.

Sharing their modus operandi, the report shed light as to how despite making initial payments on speculative prices, the satta agents used to refrain from lifting sugar from the mill.

The agency said that they have carried out a forensic audit of the electronic devices used by the accused to understand the mechanism adopted by the satta members besides also collecting data of their transactions from banks.

Two accused, namely Muhammad Jaleel and Muhammad Bilal, have been nominated in the case.

On April 01, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) unearthed details of 392 more benami accounts of sugar mafia from the WhatsApp groups of the satta mafia.

Overall transactions worth Rs6 billion were conducted from the benami accounts. The FIA has seized the amount in the accounts. The seized amount was earned from the satta on the sugar, the sources added.

Furthermore, the agency has gained a record of 1,000 WhatsApp groups of the sugar satta mafia from across the country.

The evidence of the involvement of more than 30 sugar mills of Punjab has also been collected by the investigation team.