Court orders ‘ deadman alive’ scam firmto pay Dh470,000
LAW CATCHES UP WITH COMPANY THAT DEFRAUDED SCORES OF EXPORTERS
Afoodstuff company behind a scam exposed by Gulf News last year now finds itself in the dock. The Ajman- based Soha Arif Foodstuff Trading has been ordered by a Dubai court to pay over Dh470,000 to Indian export house Madhav Impex.
Shouq Al Kathiri, lawyer for Madhav Impex, said they have started execution procedures against Soha Arif Foodstuff after its owner failed to respond to court summons and notices published in local newspapers asking them comply with the court order within 15 days. Madhav Impex, located in Gujarat, India supplied Soha Arif 12 containers of onions worth $ 100,000 ( Dh367,300) in August last year. They were promised payment within 24 hours of delivery but never got paid.
Long list of victims
Nearly 50 exporters were similarly tricked into shipping tonnes of food material worth millions of dirhams to Soha Arif, owned by Pakistani Mian Zaryab, and H& MZ Global Worldwide belonging to his elder brother, Chaudhary Arif Hayyab Kamboh, who famously faked his death around three years ago. In fact, H& MZ Global Worldwide was launched by Hayyab almost 14 months after he was reportedly ‘ killed’ in the purported road accident in Sharjah on July 19, 2017. His untimely ‘ demise’ was mourned by many.
MQM Television, which claims to represent Pakistan political party Muttahida Qaumi Movement ( MQM), even extended condolences to the family of the deceased in a Facebook post two days later. The post was accompanied by a picture of Hayyab Arif lying dead with cotton balls plugged in his nostrils and a white burial shroud wrapped around his body.
Mian Zaryab also took to Facebook in August 2017 to talk about the pain of losing his brother. Both posts elicited an outpouring of grief with scores paying glowing tributes to the departed soul.
As it turned out, Hayyab was not dead. A Gulf News report published on October 24, 2019 showed he was alive and, together with Zaryab, making a killing by scamming exporters.
Madhav Impex took the legal route and won a favourable verdict against Soha Arif Foodstuff in December 2019.
Lawyer Shouq Al Kathiri said the court has ordered Soha Arif to pay $ 105,000 besides interest calculated at nine per cent August 2019.
Neither Zaryab nor Hayyab could be reached for comments.
Duo deny any wrongdoing
At the time of the expose, both had denied any wrongdoing. Zaryab said there was a “conspiracy against him’.
Hayyab said he was ‘ very much alive’. He said the picture of him lying dead was from his theatre days in Pakistan where he played a deadman in a stage show. He declined to reveal when it was staged. “It’s my personal matter,” he had told
Gulf News last year.