Prime Ministers may change; the army’s top brass as well, but one name tends to stick around, making headlines, mostly for the wrong reasons, year after year. 2019 was no different, in fact worse for the guy than previous years. The Supreme Court slapped a fine of Rs460 billion on him, yes; billion with a ‘b’, after being found guilty of selling land at a ridiculous profit that he basically got for free. Just for some perspective, that translates into an eye-popping $2.91 billion. And how does Riaz react? Not a sweat broken. ‘Here’s your cash, now don’t bother me with this NAB business-I’ve got a business to run’.
That is what you call ‘Eff-U’ money.
This confidence makes even more sense when you consider how the PTI government, on discovering the UK’s National Crime Agency seized assets worth £190m belonging to Riaz that included an apartment once owned by Hussain Nawaz, remained mum, not a word on it, in fact a cabinet level instruction was issued that no one from the administration was to comment on it. Had it been literally anyone else; the PTI, a slave to its ‘accountability’ fetish would’ve pounced on it. A London apartment and corrupt money being repatriated to Pakistan, one can only imagine the restraint that must have been required to direct blood back northwards. As they say, money talks and the proverbial walks.
