An accountant and his travel blogger wife are to be tried in December on charges relating to an alleged £ 290,000 fraud against the Irish Football Association.
o Down-based Muhammad Naeem denies cheating on football’s governing body by creating bogus bills and transferring money overseas.
His partner Sumbul Jahangir (37) denies a single charge of possession of criminal property, namely £ 36,231, between January 2018 and August 2019.
The prosecution claims the money is part of the £ 287,932 her partner Naeem allegedly defrauded from the IFA.
Naeem (40) is charged with fraud through abuse of position, false accounting, as well as possession, transfer and removal of criminal property, all dated between January 2018 and September 2019.
He is alleged to have abused his position by duplicating invoices and making fraudulent payments with the intention of causing losses to the IFA.
He is also accused of making payments to bank accounts held in his name and to accounts in Pakistan.
Following a review of the case at Belfast Crown Court last week, the judge adjourned proceedings for another review on September 28 ahead of a trial set to begin in December.
Naeem and Jahangir, of Drumhirk Avenue in Newtownards, are released on bail.
Jahangir is a prolific travel blogger who, before the lockdown, boasted of posting travel content twice a week to her Travel Is The Answer Facebook account, which has nearly 50,000 subscribers.
She continued to blog about her travels, primarily in the UK due to coronavirus restrictions on overseas travel.
In a review of Northern Ireland in May this year, she wrote how her first visit prompted her to move to the province to live.
“The Irish have been some of the friendliest people I have ever met. This is the second place I wanted to move to only after my first visit. (The first time this happened to me was with Scotland), â€she wrote.
According to her Facebook page, the avowed travel junkie has visited many countries since February 2019, including Turkey, Switzerland, Scotland, the Netherlands, England and vacation destinations here.
The jet setter also boasts of staying in cave rooms in Cappadocia, Turkey; skydiving in England and climbing the Schilthorn in the Bernese Alps in Switzerland.
On social media, she says, “I am passionate about exploring and learning about this beautiful, beautiful and awe-inspiring world.”
Sunday Life previously asked Naeem if he wanted to comment on the case against him and his partner, but he declined.
