Three major scams: FIA fails to recoup laundered cash

ISLAMABAD:

The Federal Investigation Agency has expressed its inability to bring back the money laundered in three high-profile corruption cases as currently the money is kept in foreign banks particularly in the UAE and Malaysia.

This was revealed by Director General FIA Ghalib Bandesha while briefing the senate standing committee on interior and narcotics control on Thursday. He said that the key accused persons in three high-profile corruption cases have fled to the United Kingdom with millions of embezzled money and there are legal hurdles to bring the amount back from the foreign banks due to absence of such MoUs.

Briefing the committee, the DG stated that Farhan Junejo, an accused of the EOBI scam has fled to UK with Rs330 million. While Asim Malik, the chief executive officer of the immigration consultancy firm, Future Concern, is involved in a Rs 1.5 billion scam and has also settled in the UK. Additionally, Mohsin Warraich and Habib Warraich, the co-accused in the NILC scandal have also relocated to UK.

“Negotiation is under way with the UK authorities to bring them back”, the FIA chief informed the committee.  “But under the law, they are not bound to hand them over or give us the access to their banks because of absence of any such agreement”, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 11^th, 2014.