FIA raid in Karachi unearths millions of rupees Hawala, Hundi transfers

KARACHI: Corporate Crime Circle of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Tuesday failed in its bid to arrest an accused involved in transferring millions of rupees via Hawala and Hundi channels from the country on daily basis during a raid in Karachi, ARY NEWS reported.

The FIA team carried out a raid in Gulzar-e-Hijri area of the city to arrest an accused identified as Naqash for his involvement in Hawala and Hundi activities.

“We recovered a huge cache of national and foreign currency from his house during the raid,” said the Director FIA Zone Sindh Munir Ahmed Shaikh.

He said that other than Chinese, Saudi, United States (US) Dollars and other foreign currencies, Rs 2,072,000 cash was also recovered during the raid.

We have also successfully recovered records of Hawala and Hundi transactions from his phone, said Munir Shaikh adding that it showed a money trail of Rs 19 million received in terms of illegal transfers on Tuesday, followed by a record of Rs 22 million transactions on Monday.

We have recovered a record of those who received money from the accused, he said adding that measures were taken to arrest the accused.

It is pertinent to mention here that the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has repeatedly warned of strict action against the illegal foreign exchange operator.

In a statement in August 2019, the SBP said that the bank will crackdown on illegal money changer, hundi and hawala operators across the country.

The SBP said that only banks and authorized dealers were allowed to do foreign currency business with the public. Foreign currency business and transactions through unauthorized entities were illegal, read the statement.