I wanted to share an occurence that happened with me and my family recently. Im not sharing for sympathy, but rather as a sobering reminder that nobody, no matter how much you know them can ever be trusted. Take my story as a lesson and please do not let this happen to you.
Around 7 months ago, my aunt suddenly passed away of sepsis. She (them all widowed) was among 5 siblings, 2 of which including my father lived in the UK, 2 of which lived in Pakistan, of which one, has really, really bad dementia.
Now as with every Pakistani family, there’s always internal strife, in our case, it was between our cousins. So for the sake of keeping important documents protected etc, my aunts would give them to Mr S.
Now I don’t know what the story behind Mr S is, but, Mr S was very close to the family. All of the siblings would donate tons of money to his madrasahs, for decades at that too. Everyone trusted him, immensely, he was the one my aunts relied on over there to get stuff done because they couldn’t themselves. Property, banking, whatever.
Now, we have a family house in Gulshan E Iqbal, that property was purchased by my father, however his mother wished for it to be equally split among his siblings, so he did so. My aunt however handed her share over to my siblings, for this, she had given all the paperwork etc, but for some reason, never got around to filing it. But anyhow, Mr S had the papers for this, they stayed with him the entire time.
Time goes on, and my aunt breaks her leg. She needs surgery, now, she had a rod placed in her leg, however, a few months later this got infected (please please please get any post surgery infections properly checked out!). This infection turned out to be sepsis. Now as we know, sepsis is extremely aggressive and within 3 days, my aunt had passed away.
This turned everyone’s world upside down. Nothing was ever the same, the house was empty, falling apart, the future was uncertain, especially for my other aunt with dementia, as she was her support system, everything just turned upside down. My father was extremely close to her and it devastated him like I had never seen before.
A year prior, my father had just beaten cancer, but he was never the same again. The toll it took on him just changed him as a person and his personality, understandably so. A month prior to my aunts passing, my cousin had passed due to cancer, it was horrible timing and just a lot to go through.
As with everything, the death turned into an opportunity for everything to become a free for all. Remember how I said they would keep the papers with Mr S to prevent my cousins getting their grubby fingers on them? Well some of the papers were kept in my aunts closet, which was raided the next day, the papers and her jewellery vanished, her clothes were taken out and replaced with my cousins’. Disgusting. Heck, they even took her phone, erasing it, deleting any photos and messages from her.
They’re a deplorable bunch really. My father at the time had no photos or voice notes or anything from his sister. Everything was left on that phone. Annoyingly I didn’t take the phone and hide it because I did not think people could stoop this low, but alas, they ensured that my father could not even have a single photo of his sister. Disgusting people.
Getting back to the story, my father knew the papers were with Mr S, including the ones of my aunt’s share. So my father asks him to begin the proceedings to have the shares transferred in my siblings names so we can sell everything off and do some good with the money in her name.
Mr S happily complies, as we expected from him. Obviously we knew this would take money, but my father not being local, had no clue how much and what the process was. Mr S would ask for hundreds of thousands at a time, sending convincing looking documents, posting stuff to us in the UK to sign and return etc, all seemed legit. Obviously all of this was underwritten by the immense amount of trust we had in him as a family.
I remember thinking to myself however, mr S has never invited us over. Not even as much to offer us chai at his, or food, or anything. Obviously being Pakistani, this is extremely strange to me, and I kept questioning my father about this.
The other strange behaviour I noted was he met us at the graveyard one day, at my aunts grave to give us a file with some of the documents, he came, handed us the file and left. Didn’t even bother as much to recite fatiha. Though, I can imagine the shame was probably eating him alive- or so, I’d like to think so. Who knows with these sorts of dogs.
My father doesn’t really question any of this. Until his deadlines were never met. Papers will be issued next week, this office is being slow, that one is on holiday, the usual excuses. We get a bit suspicious, but my dad, holding on to the decades of family relations we’ve had with them, their madrassah, their charity etc, carried on just sending him what he’d ask for.
It all carries on, he would send questionable looking documents that I’d look at and think hmm, but at the same time, I know the system isn’t really the greatest in Pakistan and documents that may not meet the standards of what I would expect probably do exist, so I let this carry on, with caution.
Again, months go by, he’s asking for more money, all in all, worked out to about 1.5 million PKR. My father, in hopes that he can do something good with his sisters share carries on holding hope, with him thinking there’s no way this guy would ruin 40 years of ties, support, trust etc.
We do however ask someone we trusted, our old tenants, who was a manager at a bank, he confirmed the payments weren’t real or something, HOWEVER, the issue once again arises, who do we believe. Our tenant who was abruptly made to move by my horrid cousins at my aunts passing, or this guy everyone deeply trusted for 40 years. My father held onto hope, and carried on going.
Months pass by, we’re now in April, and suddenly, my aunt (the uk one) calls my father and tells him, “Mr S is a fraud”.
Turns out, Mr S had also held the papers for a plot my other aunt had purchased a few years back, pre Covid. Turns out, my aunt was asking about her plot, and it was sold in 2022, without her knowledge.
The bastard had sold it from under her, without her knowledge and kept the money.
His brazenness is unreal, he sold the plot 4 years ago, kept accepting charity and asking for more money from my aunt, he kept leading on my aunts and father for money, documents, support etc, all while having already conducted this fraud. Nobody batted an eye or thought to ask because they trusted him.
This is where his house of cards starts to fall down. Mr S was caught, he started ignoring my father’s messages etc, until my father lets him know he’s been caught. We know he’s a fraud, we know he sold our land from under us, and we know the papers are gone and he’s stolen the originals and had strung us along with fakes for money, the game was up.
He admitted to it all, he was caught.
Now, my father offered to him to make amends, that it’ll stay quiet and nobody will know, that he must repay every single penny stolen from us. He owes us in excess of 35 million PKR.
Now, whether he pays it back, we won’t know. He’s offered to start paying it back this month. At the end of the month we’re expecting the first tranche. I do think he will pay it back, one way, or another. He is terrified and knows he will be receiving a software update if he does decide to pull a fast one.
It amazes me, he has the nerve to address my father as bhai, he has the nerve to use the name of god in his messages, “Inshaallah I will begin paying at the end of this month” etc etc, starts his messages with salam . The irony, he took all of the peace a grieving family had, and yet still wishes peace upon us. He took advantage of a dead woman who trusted him so much that she handed him everything she had to be the guardian of. He stood there, at her gravesite, continuing to take advantage of her name, to take advantage of her death for his personal gain.
And to me, just disbelief, we have alll heard of the stories. We all know the tales of land theft and family fighting over property, and dodgy agents and all. We’ve heard it a billion times, but what we, or atleast I never expected was that it would happen to us. It really doesn’t feel real. The money doesn’t matter, it really doesn’t, the betrayal, and the trust my dead aunt and my family had in him. All of that is what makes it shocking.
You know, the biggest lesson of this all is one about human nature. He had the ability to ask us for anything, and we’d more than likely oblige. We had helped his charity for 40 years. Our families were there in times of happy, or sad, in deaths, and in births, yet the nature of humans is to want more. It was never enough to have us on speed dial to give him anything he needed. Instead, he needed to pull the wool over our eyes, to take advantage of elderly women who had nobody else to support them out there, to take advantage of a grieving family, to take advantage of our trust.
I don’t share this story for sympathy, I don’t need any, we will get our money back. That is for sure. However, the reason I do share this is to let it be a cautionary tale. Another one to add to the pile, do not trust anybody. Ever. Not your friends, nor family. Doesn’t matter how many decades you’ve known eachother. Doesn’t matter what you’ve been through. Doesn’t matter how good they seem on the outside, nobody can be trusted, barring yourself.
Don’t let yourself go through this. Let this actually be a lesson, these stories exist on the internet, you may hear them through the grapevines, but unfortunately, they are real and they happen more often than you think. No matter how much you think it would never happen to you, just remember, to man, there is nothing dearer than money, and his greed for more wealth.
Take this as a lesson, stay safe people, and I hope you and your families never have to experience this.
