Reports claiming that Owais Muzaffar, known as Tappi, had been arrested in Dubai have been refuted after the Federal Investigations Agency (FIA) denied he had been arrested.
Earlier, TV channels reported that Tappi had been arrested by Interpol agents on Pakistan’s request and that he was expected to be extradited to Pakistan soon.
Reliable sources close to Tappi confirmed to Daily Times that he had not been picked up.
The former Sindh assembly lawmaker has been accused of money laundering and the illegal sale of government lands.
In August 2018, the National Accountability Bureau launched investigations in four different cases against Tappi, who is the foster brother of former president Asif Ali Zardari.
He is accused of illegally using his position in the Sindh Assembly to allot hundreds of acres of land near the Malir river, at a reported cost of Rs33 billion to the national treasury.
Former Sindh Chief Secretary Raja Muhammad Abbas, and the Sindh Land Utilisation Department’s former secretaries Ghulam Mustafa Phul and Ghulam Abbas Soomro have also been named in the case.
Speaking at a press conference in Larkana, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, called the reports of Tappi’s arrest “fake news”.
Several media outlets kept repeating this fake news until the filing of this story.
