The wife of a Huddersfield travel agent at the centre of a fraud investigation says he has left her £20,000 in debt.
A customer had complained that Birkby-based Atif Hafeez had organised two flights to Dubai and Pakistan were cancelled the night before he and his wife were due to fly.
He has since vanished and his shop has closed.
Now his wife has spoken out to reveal that he left her and their two children last summer and she thinks he left Huddersfield in January this year.
Rizwana Hafeez, a teacher, said her husband left her and their two children aged 13 and 10 last August and she has had no contact with him at all since January when he failed to turn up to her son’s school to collect him. She thinks he caught a coach to London at that time.
“I have absolutely nothing to do with this yet I’ve had lots of people who have come to my house asking where their money has gone,” she said. “We’ve felt unsafe and scared, it’s been very traumatic and we are constantly looking over our shoulders.”
Mr Hafeez, 41, did money transfers and Mrs Hafeez says people are asking about money they had sent to charitable causes all over the world.
She said her husband had been in business in Huddersfield for about 10 years.
She added: “The rent on the shop had not been paid along with our own household bills. He has left me in debt to the tune of £20,000.”
Customer Asif Tanvir says he lost almost £1,000 after his flights to Dubai and Pakistan were cancelled the night before he and his wife were due to fly.
Mr Tanvir, who runs a takeaway business in Huddersfield, booked the flights through Atif Hafeez of Atif Tours & Travels Ltd based at St John’s Road at Birkby.
He paid for the tickets in cash - paying £980 - and says he trusted Mr Hafeez as he had booked flights with him on four separate occasions.
But he and his wife Ambreen were left disappointed and angry when they arrived at Manchester Airport on March 11 to be told their Emirates flight tickets had been cancelled the night before.
Mr Tanvir was told that the tickets had been refunded to a credit card.
“I was in shock and my wife was in tears,” he said. “I am a heart patient following a heart attack and my wife has recently had cancer so we don’t need this stress.
“We had to buy two more tickets for £2,000 as we had a hotel in Dubai for five days and were spending two weeks in Pakistan.”
He has tried phoning the travel agent but none of the lines are currently working and the office is no longer open. Another business has taken the property over.
A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said it was investigating a report relating to fraud by false representation which involved plane tickets which had been purchased and later cancelled.
Police investigations are continuing.
