FIA names Unity Foods' Ex-CEO in Rs44.7bn fraud case

August 28, 2026 (MLN): The Federal Investigation Agency has registered a criminal case against the former leadership of Unity Foods Limited (PSX: UNITY), accusing them of a multi-year scheme that allegedly siphoned billions of rupees out of the KSE-100-listed edible-oil major and left a Rs 44.7 billion gap between its published accounts and its own internal records.

FIA's Corporate Crime Circle in Karachi lodged FIR No. FIR-CCC-KHI-15/26 on August 29, 2026, naming Muhammad Farrukh Amin Godil, the company's former Chief Executive Officer, alongside his mother Fehmida Amin, former Chief Financial Officer Jalees Edhi, former director and later CEO Amir Shehzad, and director Safdar Sajjad as accused persons under Sections 406, 420 and 477-A, read with 109 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code, the provisions covering criminal breach of trust, cheating, falsification of accounts, abetment and common intention.

The case stems from a referral by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan.

Arshad Mahmood, Director and Head of the Supervision Division at SECP, forwarded the matter to the FIA under Section 41-B of the SECP Act, 1997, following an internal regulatory inquiry, Inquiry No. 47/2026, into a pattern of transactions at Unity Foods that, on paper, do not add up.

Assistant Director Umayad Arshad Butt has been assigned to investigate, and the FIR notes there was no delay in registering the case once the Director FIA Karachi Zone authorised it.

“Shareholders, the investing public and lenders were allegedly induced to continue delivering funds and credit to the Company”, language taken directly from the FIA's own account of the SECP referral.

For a company that sits inside the KSE-100 index and counts Singapore-based agribusiness major Wilmar International, through Wilmar Pakistan Holdings and Unity Wilmar Agro, as its single largest shareholder bloc, that is a heavy allegation.

It goes to the heart of what public shareholders are entitled to assume: that the numbers in a listed company's audited accounts are real.

I. The “loans” to the CEO's mother

The most personally direct of the six allegations concerns Fehmida Amin, Farrukh Godil's mother. Per the SECP referral, in FY2017-18 and FY2018-19 the company's books recorded “loans” of Rs 705.70 million and Rs 4,792.70 million received from her, against payments back to her of Rs 283.00 million and Rs 5,035.50 million, all without a banking instrument or board approval to support either leg.

Net, the FIA alleges Farrukh misappropriated Rs 5,318.5 million of entrusted company funds in her favour, using false loan entries in books that were in Jalees Edhi's charge as CFO.

II. Rs 2.87 billion of a Rs 3.75 billion rights issue

In February 2019, Unity Foods went to its own shareholders and the investing public for Rs 3,750 million through a rights issue, telling them the money would fund the acquisition of assets from M/s Yaqoot Oil Processing & Extracting Mills, an expansion of the Port Qasim refinery (Rs 2,000 million) and a new oil storage terminal (Rs 900 million).

According to the FIR, the company can only account for Rs 876.6 million of actual utilisation; no vouchers or banking instruments exist for the remaining Rs 2,873.4 million, and as late as March 2022 the company was still telling stakeholders that a site for the oil terminal had only just been identified.

The FIA's language here is unambiguous; it calls this inducing subscribers to part with their money “on a false representation as to its purpose.”

III. Rs 2.6 billion advanced to undisclosed parties

Through its subsidiary Sunridge Foods (Pvt) Ltd, the company allegedly advanced Rs 2,600 million to two parties that were never disclosed, without the documentation, authorisation or approvals such related-party-style exposure would require.

Roughly Rs 2 billion of that was still outstanding, interest-free, when Sunridge's own CFO reported the exposure to the Unity Foods board on February 12, 2026, which is itself notable, since it suggests the board only became aware of the scale of the exposure this year.

IV. A Rs 12.45 billion lien on the company's own deposits

This is arguably the allegation with the most immediate balance-sheet consequence. Two former subsidiaries, Unity Technologies (Pvt) Ltd and Unity Plantations (Pvt) Ltd, were transferred out to individuals within the group's own companies, allegedly without due diligence, without an arm's-length basis, and without the necessary approvals.

Sale proceeds of Rs 499.9 million and Rs 787 million respectively remain outstanding to this day.

Meanwhile, Unity Foods' own deposits, roughly Rs 7.25 billion with BankIslami Pakistan and Rs 5.2 billion with Al Baraka Bank (Pakistan), stand pledged as liens against UTPL's own borrowings from those same banks. BankIslami has since recalled a USD 4 million facility extended to the company, and mark-up of Rs 197 million fell due in March 2026.

In effect, the FIA alleges, the company's cash was pledged to cover the debts of an entity it no longer even owned, in what the FIR calls “a circular movement of funds.”

V. The Al-Shaheer Corporation acquisition

The fifth count describes what looks like a related-party acquisition run through the company's own resources for the CEO's personal benefit.

While still CEO of Unity Foods, Farrukh Godil signed a Letter of Understanding, dated December 4, 2023, in his own name with Kamran Ahmed Khalili, then CEO of Al-Shaheer Corporation Ltd (ASC), a company in which Unity Foods' subsidiary Sunridge Foods already held a 15.22% stake (57,067,848 shares).

Under that LoU, 30 million ASC shares were acquired through nominees: Safdar Sajjad (10 million), Amir Shehzad (10 million), Fehmida Amin (4 million) and DJM Securities (Pvt) Ltd (6 million), booked at market rates of Rs 11 to Rs 11.99 a share, even though the actual consideration under the LoU was Rs 6.50 a share against a stated deal price of Rs 12.86.

Amir Shehzad was inducted onto ASC's board on December 6, 2023, exactly as the LoU stipulated.

After that, per SECP, roughly Rs 1.1 billion in goods moved from Unity Foods to ASC without corresponding recovery; ASC's own books show Rs 1.1 billion payable to Unity Foods and Rs 390 million payable to Sunridge, despite what the FIA describes as “no significant purchases” having actually been made.

Sunridge also picked up ASC's electricity bills and consultants' fees, and paid Rs 27 million to First Habib Modaraba to settle a recovery suit against ASC.

The FIA's read is direct: company resources were diverted to benefit a business Farrukh was personally acquiring, with Amir Shehzad, Fehmida Amin and Safdar Sajjad acting as his nominees.

VI. A Rs 44.7 billion gap in the books

The last and largest count is the one that should worry every Unity Foods shareholder most directly, because it goes to whether the company's published financial statements can be trusted at all.

The SECP's internal analysis found a difference of approximately Rs 44.7 billion between the company's published accounts and its own internal SAP records. Within that gap, the FIR itemises: receivables booked against a customer named “Mujahid Broker” that the FIA describes as fictitious, without adequate supporting commercial documentation; an inventory shortfall of about Rs 5.2 billion between SAP records and physical stock; aged receivables of roughly Rs 5 billion recorded from Sunridge Mart (Pvt) Ltd with no evidence goods were ever delivered; about Rs 1.1 billion in sales recorded belatedly; multiple inconsistencies in trade-payable reconciliations; and, tellingly, the company's failure to prepare or publish its half-yearly accounts for the period ended December 31, 2025 at all.

These are accounts that were authenticated by the Chief Executive, the CFO and a director under Section 232 of the Companies Act, 2017, which is precisely why the FIA frames this as falsification of accounts and cheating on the part of Farrukh Godil, Jalees Edhi and Amir Shehzad, the three people whose management and charge the books fell under. WHO'S NAMED, AND WHO ISN'T, YET?  Five individuals are formally accused in the FIR itself.

But paragraph 9 of the report is careful to note that the role of several other individuals, Sualeha Farrukh, Abdul Majeed Ghaziani, Ghazanfar Allah Buksh Sheikh, Sarah Anjum, Ghulam Farooq and others, will be “thrashed out during the course of investigation,” meaning the FIA is leaving the door open to widen the case.

The FIR also flags that the roles of other Unity Foods directors and officers, the recipients of the Rs 2.6 billion in undisclosed advances, whoever purchased UTPL and UPPL, DJM Securities, and the company's statutory auditors will all be examined, alongside related-party transactions with Unity Feeds (Pvt) Ltd, for which the FIA says vouchers were withheld entirely.