Profile: Arshad Amjad & Abid (Pvt.) Ltd.

A group of Pakistani companies headed by Pakistani businessman Shaik Mohammad Farooq assists the A. Q. Khan nuclear smuggling ring, although details are sketchy. According to the book The Islamic Bomb, in 1979, a procurer for the network uses one of Farooq’s companies, Asiatic Chemical Industries Ltd., “as a conduit for the Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission.” According to a US State Department cable, another of Farooq’s companies, Arshad Amjad & Abid (Pvt.) Ltd., purchases a coordinate measuring machine from Japan and resells it to the Pakistan Chemical Corp., a front for Khan. MI5 will also list Arshad Amjad & Abid as a company of “proliferation concern” due to its participation in “weapons of mass destruction programs.” In addition, Khan’s biography will thank Farooq and Arshad Amjad & Abid for playing “a very commendable and daring role” in obtaining equipment for Khan from a long list of mostly European countries. Farooq serves as the chairman of the A. Q. Khan Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering and is on the board of other institutions with Khan. He will also host a reception for Khan in 2001 and accompany him during an altercation over a mental hospital in 2002. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 185] Khan will also visit one of Farooq’s companies in Dubai (see Late March 2000).