- Chaudhry Abdul Majid minted Rs 24 billion in the name of a housing society that never existed.
Atif Khan
In one of the biggest scams of 2022, property tycoon Chaudhry Abdul Majid minted Rs 24 billion in the name of a housing society that never existed. In an intelligently orchestrated scheme, Chaudhry Majid, through his network of dealers, created media hype about an upcoming real estate project, Faisal Town II. For months, real estate agents portrayed Chaudhry as the country's most successful and honest builder, who had made his investors rich overnight via vlogs, emails, and WhatsApp messages. It was a blatant lie because most of Chaudhry Majid's projects are still under development. Some of his projects have appreciated over the last few years, just because of devaluation and overall inflation. During the year 2022, his projects lost half of their value. A humble clerk, Chaudhry Majid started his career in a rented office a few decades ago. He bought cheap land in the suburbs and, with investors' money, transformed it into an overpriced housing colony. Most of his projects are still incomplete, with a thin or no population, but he minted trillions of rupees in the process. To protect his scams, he also launched a media group, the Aur TV network. But, despite all attempts, his projects lost half of their value during the year 2022. Nobody was interested in buying overpriced housing units far from the city. To extort money from the market, Chaudhry Majid devised another scam, Faisal Town-2. He offered a 5-marla plot at Rs. 279,5000, to be booked for a down payment of Rs.595,000. Majid and his associate property dealers hyped that the price would increase to Rs 3 million after the 3-day introductory offer.
It proved to be a perfect bait, as all the announced inventory was sold in just three days. Investors learned about the fraud when, instead of increasing, the rates fell. The Rs. 595,000 downpayment file was traded at a loss of Rs. 100,000 within one month. The dealers fear it may lose value further if the project is not initiated and approved soon. The Rawalpindi Development Authority declares the scheme illegal. According to an RDA spokesperson, Faisal Town-2 is one of the 134 unapproved and illegal housing societies operating in Rawalpindi Zilla Council limits. According to the Punjab Development Authorities Private Housing Society Rules 2021, the RDA cannot grant approval to a private housing society unless the society provides all the documents related to the land, location, maps, roads, electricity, water, and other facilities. The powerful land mafia announces housing schemes without having any land, sells thousands of plot files in a few months, and runs away. Poor buyers, mostly overseas Pakistanis, remain helpless.
If Faisal Town 2 is illegal, how did it steal Rs 24 billion from the market through a massive media campaign, RDA blamed law enforcement agencies."Stopping property scams is the responsibility of law enforcement agencies, not the RDA," officials insisted. During background interviews, it was learned that the majority of housing projects, including Faisal Town 2, took advantage of the lack of laws. Most societies buy a few acres, get approval, and sell thousands of acres of land they never own, but there is no mechanism to check it, said an RDA officer. He said that from politician Aleem Khan's Parkview to business group Habib Rafiq's Capital Smart City, most of the private housing societies are overselling. Politicians, bureaucrats, and the military elite allegedly protect illegal housing societies. Many believe law enforcement agencies' silence against the land mafia is sufficient proof that the ruling elite is protecting the land mafia in the country.
This story was originally carried in independent Urdu. Read here
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