Double Shah

Syed Sibtul Hassan Shah alias Double Shah, (born March 3, 1964) was a teacher who started a financial scam, a Ponzi Scheme, in Pakistan. Syed Sibtul Hassan Shah is a resident of Pak town - a lower middle class area - in Wazirabad, a tehsil of Gujranwala. He was born in (Kolo) a small town of Sambrial Tehsil, in Sialkot District, Punjab.

He is a BSc and BEd and was a science teacher at Government High School, Nizamabad until 2005. After taking leave from his job, he went to Dubai where he stayed for about six months. Upon his return, he left his job and approached his colleagues and neighbours, asking them to give him their savings, which he would return in double in just 15 days. The first person to trust him was his next-door neighbour who owned a marble business. He was followed by many of Shah’s colleagues. As promised, their investments were doubled in 15 days.

This was a pyramid scheme where investors were offered 100% return on their investment in just 15 days, later extended to 70 days. Double Shah was arrested by the Gakkhar police on 13 April 2007 from his Nizamabad house on charges of Rs. 30,000 robbery. He is now in the custody of the National Accountability Bureau.The first case was logged against him with other 18 persons by the local police under the Anti-Terrorist act, and only one person was released on bail by the judge of the Anti-Terrorist court, in Gujranwala, Pakistan. His co-accused, Ijaz Cheema, was released on bail; his counsel being Syed Asad Ali Bukhari, Advocate High Court. The amount of money that he earned during his 18 months of business was over Rs. 70 billion (almost USD 1 Billion).

Similar Case

In a similar case, a teacher, Mohammad Ishtiaq Bhatti, decided to follow his footsteps. He met Double Shah in jail and learnt the art of doubling money from him.He took leave from his school in Bewal,a town in Gujar Khan. The residents of this town are mostly well off owing to inflow of money from their relatives in UK. He invited investors, principally his acquaintances in the Bewal/Gujar Khan area, to invest in business and promised big profits. He had been running a rent-a-car and real estate business on Murre Road, Rawalpindi, but has now absconded with Rs. 5 billion.