Karachi ice cream vendor becomes unwitting billionaire

A massive money laundering operation in Pakistan turned a humble Karachi ice cream salesman into a billionaire (in rupees) for over a year.

“I am the most unlucky man in the world,” 52-year-old Muhammad Abdul Qadir lamented in a television interview, according to The Guardian. “When I came to know about [the money], it was no longer there.”

According to Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency, a bank account registered in Qadir’s name in 2014 held 2.3 billion rupees ($18.6 million), which were withdrawn in 2015.

The account is one of at least 77 being investigated by the FIA, suspected of being part of a 35 billion rupee ($283 million) money laundering operation. The probe has implicated former president Asif Ali Zardari.

Qadir is not a suspect in the probe for one simple reason: He is illiterate, and so could not have signed the papers opening the account in question.

Most of the accounts being investigated followed a similar pattern. They contained small fortunes and were registered in the names of menial laborers and poor people who were not aware of the accounts’ existence.

According to the Guardian, Qadir was last questioned in September, when the father of two pleaded to officials to visit his home and see for themselves his impoverished conditions.

The news about his unwitting flirtation with wealth has caused him nothing but grief.

“People started taunting me by saying, ‘Look, a billionaire is selling falooda [an ice-cream topped dessert],’” he told the British daily. His family fears for his safety from kidnappers who might be unconvinced by his denials that he ever knew about the money.

One friend, a chickpea seller from Qadir’s street, said, “I wish my friend had left his cart behind and become a billionaire for real. Alas it is not the case.”