Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh, the CEO of Axact and BOL TV, was arrested by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Thursday at the Islamabad airport on suspicion of bribing a former sessions judge to drop a case involving bogus degrees.
Shoaib Shaikh was apprehended shortly following his journey from Karachi to Islamabad.
The CEO of BOL TV is suspected of bribing Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Pervez-ul-Qadir Memon to obtain a favorable verdict in the Axact fake degree case. ADSJ admitted before the Islamabad High Court in 2017 that he had bribed Rs. 5 million to forgive the Axact CEO.
Upon Memon confession to collect the bribe to clear Shaikh, the IHC terminated his employment. The court ordered the FIA to investigate the Memon-briber. Since then, the FIA has routinely contacted Shoaib Shaikh to interrogate him about bribery.
According to FIA officials, the FIA’s Anti-Corruption Circle in Islamabad got a case from the IHC in February 2018. The First Information Report (FIR) was filed against Shaikh for “being a beneficiary of the said transaction [providing Rs 5 million in bribe] under u/s 161, 165-1, 109 PPC and 5(2) PCA 1947.”
The FIA arrested the CEO of Axact in 2015 after uncovering hundreds of thousands of counterfeit degrees and student ID cards emanating from the company’s private office in Karachi.
In television footage of the 2015 FIA raid on the Axact headquarters in Karachi, stacks of degree templates from various colleges could be seen in the building’s rooms.
According to a revelation by The New York Times, Axact operated a multimillion-dollar phony diploma business out of a covert office.
Shaikh and the Axact management were also accused in a multimillion-dollar money laundering case. Still, the chief executive was finally declared not guilty by the discredited judge Pervez-ul-Qadri Memon.
 on Thursday at the Islamabad airport){kind=link}