Toshakhana saga: Umar Farooq Zahoor remains wanted by Norwegian Police

KARACHI: Despite claims by a segment of electronic and online media in Pakistan, portraying that Umer Farooq Zahoor, a Dubai-based businessman who claimed to have purchased costly Toshakhana watch from Ms Farah, is an innocent person didn’t attend his fathers funeral couple of weeks ago, or visited his family in Norway for 12 years.

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Umar Farooq Zahoor reportedly spent sometime in London’s prison in the year 2000, and was given a year in prison for founding Banque Internationale, a fictitious bank in Zürich, Switzerland in the year 2003. 

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He also believed to have participated in Nordea fraud, which resulted in the theft of over 63 million kroner from affluent widow Randi Nilsen. The funds were transferred to Dubai in 2010 via a Nordea bank branch in Oslo, where they were thought to be under Zahoor’s control.

A report Norway’s most read newspaper was published in July 2020. The headline reads: Wanted by Norwegian police, got himself a diplomatic passport. This report disapproves any claims of innocence. Umar Farooq Zahoor (46) has been wanted by the Norwegian police for seven years. In 2019, the 46-year-old was appointed ambassador for Liberia. The Norwegian police are unable to get hold of him. He left Norway before he was to serve another sentence for embezzlement.  Today he lives in the Emirates, which will not extradite him to Norway. VG has previously mentioned that he lives a luxurious life in Dubai.

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The newspaper report says one of the passports (of Umar Farooq Zahoor) VG has gained access to can be linked to a Canadian who has been wanted for several years, after Canadian and American authorities in 2014 accused him of large-scale fraud. He attempted to have the warrant removed by invoking diplomatic immunity. In a letter from Liberian to Pakistani authorities dated August 2020, it is stated that “Ambassador Farooq will assist Liberia with special assignments abroad and is thus an invaluable resource. In the same letter, it was stated “the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Liberia requests […] the necessary assistance in removing the yellow and red alerts”. 

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In another letter, the Department of Foreign Affairs in Liberia requested that Interpol – and in particular Interpol’s branch in Pakistan – be notified of Zahoor’s ambassadorial status. Zahoor later submitted the letter to a court in Pakistan in an attempt to avoid prosecution.