Illegal transfer of forex to Kabul: Two held

FIA recovers Rs3.9m from accused during a raid in Lahore.

LAHORE:

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested two dealers involved in transferring billions of rupees to Afghanistan in the form of illegal foreign exchange through the hawala/hundi system, and recovered around Rs3.9 million late on Monday, The Express Tribune learnt.

The FIA received information that a group of dealers was using the hawala business in Lahore, near the Lahore Railway Station, to transfer billions of rupees to Afghanistan.

A six-member team of the FIA’s Corporate Crime Circle (CCC), headed by Station House Officer and CCC Police Station Inspector, Mubshar Ahmed Tirmizi, under the supervision of Additional Director CCC, Syed Javed Hussain Shah, raided a shop where the dealers were conducting their business for the past two years , a member of the team said.

The CCC team arrested two hundi dealers identified as Muhammad Naeem and Rai Azam, while the third dealer, Haji Zaheer, reportedly the shop owner, was residing in Peshawar and was still at large.

The FIA team recovered Rs3.9 million from the possession of Naeem and Azam and also seized records of their business, which included registers and diaries.

Sources familiar with the matter revealed that the investigation was conducted on suspicion of terrorist financing, because the practice could not be done through legal banking and financial channels.

The member of the FIA team added that no signboard was placed outside the shop to avoid suspicion, and the accused had not obtained a licence from the State Bank of Pakistan to deal in foreign exchange.

A case has been registered with the FIA’s CCC Police Station against the accused under the relevant sections of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act after filing an FIR. Further investigations were also under way.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24^th, 2012.