Ali Bin Gharsan and Adnan Al-Shabrawi Okaz/Saudi Gazette JEDDAH - The Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MOCI) has summoned 30 real estate companies and groups that allegedly failed to fulfill promises they made to shareholders to appear before one of its committees. They took money from different shareholders to invest in real estate deals and projects and failed to give back any profits, let alone the original investment money, to shareholders, the ministry said. The MOCI committee of real estate investments asked the investors to appear in person before its 30-day notice of summons ends or else it will ask local authorities to force them to appear before the committee. Their names will also be put on the travel ban list. So far, the lawyers of three of the investors have contacted the committee and promised that their clients will make an appearance before the deadline. The names of investment projects as well as companies and groups have been posted on the committee's website. The committee urged anyone who has information about the contact details of investors to contact it. It has asked the departments of passports, traffic, and civil status to suspend the services of all the investors and gave orders to the banks to freeze their accounts. A source in the Ministry of Justice told Okaz/Saudi Gazette that some of the investors are based in Makkah, Madinah, Jeddah, Dammam, Abha, Al-Kharj, Al-Qassim and Qunfudah. In a related development, banks all over the Kingdom are currently looking into several cases filed by shareholders who invested money with some real estate companies and not received any profits for a long time. A source said some of the investors used illegal methods to raise money while others lied to shareholders and pretended they were investing their money in profitable projects. Other investors are engaged in money laundering practices, the source said. Riyadh General Court is reviewing a case involving over SR1.5 billion that was paid to a particular investor. The committee in charge of the fraud case said the investor deceived shareholders into paying this large amount of money.
