Abu Dhabi: Malik Noureed Awan’s website calls him the ‘youngest successful businessman of Asia with an aim to conquer the world’ and until late last year there was little to say that his life didn’t epitomise the sobriquet.
He lived it up in style — jet-setting around the world and hobnobbing with the UAE’s elite circles — from sponsoring top cricket events to attending gala black tie functions — with no one in a position to really point a finger.
A self-proclaimed ‘proud Pakistani’, the 20-something’s list of companies too seemed to run the distance — a heavy machinery company, an advertising firm, an online radio, a social networking platform, a welfare organisation, a private airline, a financial investment company in the name of a bank and a forex trading syndicate.
It’s the last one though that’s making the CEO of the MMA Group of companies - named after his father Malik Mushtaq Awan, a man who is said to have made a modest start in the UAE - newsworthy again, albeit for the wrong reasons.
For the uninitiated, at stake is an estimated Dh40 million worth of investments made by some thousands of small- to big-time investors who put their total faith in MMA Forex, the online foreign exchange trading arm of MMA Group. The depositors, some of whom earn a pittance as blue collar workers, say they put their all — from life savings to their personal loan amounts to cash earned from sell-offs — all for promised attractive returns per month.
In reality, however, some have recovered only miniscule portions of their investments going up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in several cases as XPRESS has learnt. Many have yet to see any returns for months now. Some have been forced to quit their jobs and go underground after banks started pestering them for the repayment of loans, and many have had to face far desperate and gruesome consequences.
The company’s Al Nahda office on the 11th floor of the MAI Tower (ironically the building that housed another dubious investment company called Sunfeast Infotech) remains closed following a crackdown by Dubai Police. Awan is in police custody for further investigation.
In recent weeks though the Dubai-raised businessman has managed to steer clear of MMA Forex by denying that the company was related to his conglomerate. However, there is enough evidence — on the radio, on the internet including YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook — to suggest that MMA Forex was indeed a company he formed in 1996, in his own words, ‘to create job opportunities’ for everyone.
The official website claims MMA group is one of the world’s leading online forex trading brokers, with over 100,000 registered customers worldwide and volumes of more than $20 billion (Dh73 billion) a month.
Bogus claims
MMA Forex says it is backed by a major financial institution with over $17 billion in assets under management and is rated “A+” by an S&P affiliated rating agency.
However, when XPRESS called the Dubai-office of VG Bank Investment Bank AG with whom MMA claims to be registered, a representative of the German company denied having any relationship with them. In fact, MMA Forex is not even listed with the government of Dubai or with the UAE Central Bank.
Awan’s other claims also appear disputed. For example, his MMA Bank GT whose offices are located on the 15th floor of the same building in Al Nahda is also known to flout rules. The company that operates in the name of a bank has a licence for general trading only. MMABank GT is also listed under the “firms you should avoid doing business with” by certain countries, including the Swedish Financial
Supervisory Authority and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority. MMA Forex is on the watchlist of the Investor Alerts of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions as listed by the Central Bank of Ireland.
Plane truth
There also remain serious questions about the operation of Awan’s private MMA airline of which he claims to be chairman.
The airline, launched at an event in Dubai last year, never took off. Billed as the UAE’s first private commercial airline, it was set to begin flights from May 2012.
However, enquires made with RAK airport, the proposed hub of MMA Airline, revealed no airline called MMA actually exists. “We have only RAK Airways and some chartered flights but no MMA airline,” an airport staff confirmed.
Awan’s company was said to have invested $50 million (Dh183 million) in the start-up with flights to Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi out of Ras Al Khaimah but in reality there are only scheduled RAK Airways flights to the first two and Peshawar.
There are similar doubts over the authenticity of some of his other companies -- MMA Production and MMA online FM radio. However, Awan has seldom stopped short of fascinating his brethren. Only last year, he announced that his MMA Welfare organisation would provide 50 generators for traders and build orphanages in his hometown of Abottabad, in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province made infamous by slain Al Qaida chief Osama Bin Laden.
Days ago while still in custody, he even pledged half a million dollars for the cause of Syria on his Facebook account. Then there are videos of him firing assault rifles in the air in his home country. If that and his elaborate goatee didn’t quite capture his penchant for a flashy lifestyle, his marriage to a one-time Bollywood hit singer Annie Khalid surely did.
Awan tied the knot with the British-born Pakistani woman in September last year, but the relationship didn’t last more than two months. After returning to her home in London, Annie alleged on TV that “he (Noureed) hit me, he slapped me, he kicked me, he punched me and it was horrific.”
Earlier this February, Awan married again. This time the bride was another woman from the glamour industry - ex-Pakistani actress Sataesh Khan.
On Wednesday night an MMA Forex staff confirmed that Awan was still in police custody.
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