UK starts probe against main character of TDAP scandal

FIA in 2013 provided evidence against Farhan Jonejo, PPP’s former leader’s right-hand man

KARACHI: Authorities in the United Kingdom have started their probe into a multi-billion-rupee money laundering scandal involving a Sindh government official, Farhan Jonejo.

A notification issued by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) on Monday said a former Pakistani citizen and his wife were arrested for money laundering but were later released.

Evidence against the man, later identified as Farhan Junejo, were provided to the UK authorities by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) whose Karachi chapter in 2013 started a probe into alleged corruption of Rs7 billion in the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan’s (TDAP) freight subsidy.

Back then, the FIA had registered more than 70 cases against suspects involved in the financial scandal including former premier Yousaf Raza Gilani, former minister for trade Amin Fahim, Farhan Junejo, TDAP chief, higher officials, bankers and other suspects.



Junejo, a grade 18 officer in Sindh government, was Fahim's right-hand man, who worked as secretary to the deceased leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) after he took charge as a minister in 2008.

Sources in the FIA said Junejo sneaked out of the country before the emergence of the scandal. He was apparently the central character in the scandal and received the biggest ‘share’ in the graft money generated through freight subsidy.

Junejo used to cash amounts of freight subsidy in different private banks. With the help of an officer of a private bank and a money changer, he laundered all the corruption money to Dubai through ‘hawala’.



From an account of Dubai Standard Chartered Bank, these amounts were transferred to Britain to buy properties. To prove that the amount being transferred to Britain was legal, Junejo had provided fake documents of selling an agricultural land in Karachi's Malir district.

The FIA had registered a separate case against the suspect. Junejo transferred millions of rupees from Dubai to Switzerland, America and Britain. The FIA has seized his bungalow in DHA Karachi.
Junejo is the son of former sessions judge Ali Sher Junejo. After his father’s murder, then chief minister of Sindh Jam Sadiq Ali appointed him as assistant commissioner and he was awarded an opportunity to graduate.

Junejo served as assistant commissioner in Amin Fahim's ancestral city of Hala where he developed close relations with the former federal minister.