Malawi Police arrest Pakistani over K20bn ‘Bankgate’

Malawi police have finally arrested Cotton Ginners Limited (CGL) Chief Executive Officer Abdul Yasin Reiman who fled the country after his company swindled local commercial banks of about K20.9 billion .

Reiman, who sneaked out of  the country in June this year and was allegedly hiding in his home country of Pakistan, was arrested on arrival at Blantyre-Chileka Airport on Tuesday through an Ethiopian Airlines around 14hoursn

Nyasa Times witnessed the incident as Reinman was whisked away from the public eye by airport police with the help of airport security.

Reiman got various US dollar dominated loans from various banks in the country including a government supported lending arm, the Export Development Fund (EDF), which is supposed to support Malawian business people in accessing loans for export business.

Ironically, after getting the loans from the bank, CGL offices in Limbe were gutted by fire in June which insiders believe is meant to destroy some evidence connected to the loans.

Nyasa Times revealed in June that the government entity, Export Development Fund loaned CGL a whooping $5 million (approx K3.7 billion) while Standard Bank Malawi, Ecobank Malawi each loaned the cotton company $5 million each.

CDH Bank parted with $3 million while National Bank of Malawi loaned out the least amount of $1 million.

The banks and EDF realized that the companies abroad which were supposed to buy the cotton from CGL already paid for the cotton to CGL but the money was diverted, probably to Pakistani where Reiman allegedly fled to.

Head of Fiscal Section of Malawi Police, Isaac Norman, said they questioned  the Pakistani but resumed to disclose the charges against him, saying they were “complex”.