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Dubai: A court order has been served in London on a British trader operating out of Dubai, freezing his assets as he is suspected of fraudulent trading and using investor funds for personal gain, Gulf News has learnt.
A number of people have filed a case against the trader, alleging that he misused their money.
The London High Court order states that the claimants' money was not just used for trading but it was also used to purchase personal property of 'defendant 1', identified as Atif Riaz Naz, and that "accurate monthly return statements were not provided on a monthly basis."
Naz, chief executive of Fierezza Jardine Ltd, a company registered in the UK, invested client funds in the foreign exchange markets and stocks of companies in the Dow Jones Islamic Index.
Beginning
He began to encourage investments from around 500 Muslims in 2005, as he said his product was Sharia-compliant, according to investors.
In July 2007, Naz registered a financial investment company, Knight Wazir, in Dubai, with the promise that client contracts would not change, the court paper shows.
Investors said they were sent monthly statements of their investments, which all showed healthy returns.
Now, according to the court order, the statements were false.
The court order also says that since June 5 this year, Naz has "disappeared and stopped trading and stopped producing returns and stopped producing monthly statements."
"On 26/06/08, the defendant [Atif Naz] informed the claimants that he had lost 80 per cent of their investments and thereof refused to disclose information to the claimants and attempted to sell the property to a third party," the order stated.
The funds deposited with Knight Wazir are said to have reached around £25 million (Dh162 million).
In November 2007 and April 2008, Knight Wazir made two payments of £640,000 for purchase of property, the 24th floor of the Dubai Pearl in Naz's own name, using money from client funds, said the order.
Naz then tried to sell shares in the same property back to the investors.
The Dubai Pearl project is due for completion in 2010.
Concern
Investors are concerned that their money, used to buy the property, will disappear if the property is sold. Many had invested their life savings in the company.
It is believed that a further £3 million remains outstanding for the property.
No one at Dubai Pearl was available for comment.
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