Criminal charges against former Cricket Canada chief executive Salman Khan Shahzad collapsed on Monday, ending a long-running fraud case that had cast a shadow over the sport’s national governing body and one of its key regional leagues.
Shahzad, also known as Salman Khan, had faced allegations he misappropriated $200,000 from the Calgary and District Cricket League between 2014 and 2016. He was charged in March 2025 with fraud over $5,000 and theft over $5,000.
Those accusations were supposed to be tested in court this week. Day 1 of the trial never began.
Instead, prosecutor Petter Hurich rose in a Calgary courtroom on Monday morning and withdrew the charges, bringing the criminal case against the 47-year-old to an abrupt end.
The Crown Prosecution Service, in a statement to CBC News, underscored its duty to continually reassess files as they move toward trial, saying prosecutors must ensure every case “continues to meet the standard for prosecution.” In this one, the Crown concluded it did not.
“In this file, the Crown prosecutor determined there was insufficient evidence to proceed to trial,” the statement said.
Defence lawyer Jim Lutz said the decision came after months of painstaking work on the case.
“This was the right result in law for Khan,” Lutz said, adding his client was “greatly relieved” by the development. He described nearly a year of combing through the material, “critically evaluating the evidence,” before the Crown ultimately agreed there was not enough to go forward. Lutz said Khan is “extremely grateful” the file was thoroughly reviewed.
Shahzad was not the only figure originally pulled into the probe. Former Calgary and District Cricket League treasurer Syed Wajahat Ali faced the same fraud and theft charges. Ali says his charges were withdrawn earlier this year.
Fallout at Cricket Canada
While the criminal case has ended, the repercussions for Shahzad’s career began long before Monday.
Cricket Canada terminated him as CEO in December 2025, nine months after Calgary police publicly announced the charges. The dismissal followed a board-led investigation.
In a statement on its website at the time, the Cricket Canada board said the firing “stems from Mr. Khan’s failure to disclose prior criminal charges — an act that constituted a serious breach of trust — along with violations of organizational bylaws related to his contract.”
That contract has now become its own battleground.
According to reporting by CBC’s the fifth estate, Shahzad’s deal with Cricket Canada included a clause that entitled him to full term pay if he was fired for any reason other than a criminal conviction related to his role as CEO. With the criminal case now abandoned and no conviction on his record from this file, Shahzad is reportedly pushing for that clause to be honoured.
He is seeking a remaining payout of $475,000. Cricket Canada has not publicly responded; CBC News has reached out to the organization for comment.
How the case began
The criminal investigation started not in a courtroom, but in an audit.
In 2017, the newly appointed president of the Calgary and District Cricket League ordered a review of the league’s financial records. Concerns raised during that audit were passed to Calgary police, who then launched a formal investigation.
When police announced charges in 2025, investigators alleged Shahzad and Ali had misappropriated league funds through cheque payments to construction companies and contractors linked to the former president and treasurer.
Officers said at the time that the money was supposed to cover repairs and upgrades to the league’s clubhouse and grounds. Instead, they alleged, some of the work was never done, and other portions were completed poorly with inferior materials.
Those allegations will now never be tested at trial, at least not in criminal court. The Crown’s decision to withdraw for lack of sufficient evidence brings the prosecution to a close.
Match-fixing allegations still linger
Even with the fraud and theft charges gone, Shahzad’s name remains tied to another, very different controversy.
He was prominently featured in a fifth estate investigation into claims that the Bishnoi gang — led by Lawrence Bishnoi from an Indian prison — has influence over Cricket Canada. The probe examined allegations of threats, corruption and intimidation around the sport’s governance in this country, including a letter from the gang to police boasting, “We will rule in CANADA.”
The program obtained audio from a former Cricket Canada head coach, who claimed he had been asked to fix parts of matches by then-CEO Shahzad and two other former senior officials in the organization.
Shahzad has forcefully rejected those claims. In a lengthy email to CBC News, he said he “categorically denies any involvement in spot fixing, session fixing, betting or influencing team selection for improper purposes.”
No criminal charges related to match fixing have been laid against him in Canada stemming from those allegations.
For now, the legal scoreboard shows one clear result: the fraud and theft case that once threatened to define Salman Khan Shahzad’s legacy is over. The next contest will be fought not in a criminal courtroom, but in boardrooms and, potentially, civil court, where nearly half a million dollars — and Cricket Canada’s handling of its own governance — may yet be on the line.
