Manday faces over 200 charges; goods worth millions in penthouse apartment

Prosecutor General Hussain Shameem says investigators have collected enough evidence to press Hassan Mamdhooh (Manday) – who is accused of fraud in the sale of apartments from K-Park Residences – a condominium under development in Hulhumale’ – with over 200 charges.

The fraudulent sale of the apartments was submitted for police investigation by both Hanbo – the project’s developer - and Urbanco.

Manday, the former minority shareholder at Hanbo, was arrested by the police, but was later granted conditional release by the court.

In a press briefing on Thursday afternoon, Shameem said the case that Manday, along with other suspects in the case, are accused of doctoring documents by forging the signature of Hanbo’s majority shareholders, and opening an account in the company’s name with the Bank of Maldives (BML) in order to commit acts of fraud and scam.

Shameem that the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) expects to file charges against Manday, and a second unnamed suspect in the case, earlier next week.

He said that Manday will be separately charged for each act of fraud, and the charges against him are expected to exceed 200.

He added that the authorities are running multiple parallel investigations in the case, and the number of charges is therefore expected to increase.

“He must be punished separately for each charge. Otherwise, you are just encouraging people to commit more crimes. If there’s no differentiation for people who commit more crimes, then you are just telling a thief to steal more. This is not how the law is meant to be interpreted. So, we will be filing separate charges for each incident, each offense,” he said.

The charges Manday faces includes charges of submitting forged documents, fraud, and money laundering.

“41 apartments were sold to 107 different people,” said Shameem. “We have gotten a clear picture of this in the course of our investigation.”

PENTHOUSE APARTMENT; LUXURY GOODS WORTH MILLIONS

Shameem said the police seized a penthouse apartment developed by FW Construction in connection to the case.

The police suspect the apartment, valued at MVR 7.8 million, was bought from selling two apartments from K-Park Residences to four different buyers.

During the raid of the penthouse, the police found items worth around MVR 7 million, including 200 unopened perfume bottles, luxury bags, and jewelry.

“Bags worth around MVR 90,000. Handbags worth between MVR 40,000-MVR 50,000. Different types of jewelry worth USD 10,000-USD 25,000. The total value of these goods amount to MVR 7 million,” he said.

Hanbo, which launched the K-Park project in 2016, was co-owned by Jin Shihu, a Chinese national, and Manday. Shihu owned 95 percent of the shares while Manday owned the remaining five percent.

Manday previously denied the allegations against him.