KARACHI: The Federal Investigation Agency, in a crackdown against Hundi and Hawala operators, conducted two raids and arrested three men allegedly involved in money laundering.
The spokesman for the provincial chapter of the federal agency said action was taken after information was received that a man, Muhammad Shakeel Jaffrani, was involved in the illegal business of Hundi/Hawala. An FIA team raided his house after a tip-off that Jaffrani who had earlier gone underground was present at his house in Sindhi Muslim Cooperative Housing Society.
During the raid, a huge quantity of incriminating material was seized. The material included currency notes of Pakistani and foreign countries (172,500 Pakistani rupees, 190 Canadian dollars, 100 US dollars, 750 UAE dirham and Indian rupees), hundreds of telegraphic transfer receipts and money transfer receipts of millions of dollars, invoices of payment, ledger books, loose sheets of payment entries, cheque book of multiple accounts of different banks, loose cheques of different accounts and different banks, pay orders and deposit slips.
Jaffrani could not give any plausible reply to questions which were put to him on the spot; rather, he admitted that he was involved in the illegal transfer of money through the Hundi/ Hawala business. An FIR was lodged against him under sections 4 and 5 of the FER Act, 1947 punishable under section 23 of the FER Act, 1947.
FIA investigators suspect that a Hundi/Hawala racket would be unearthed in the aftermath of this arrest. The FIA spokesman said Muhammad Noman Memon, who was also involved in the illegal business of Hundi/Hawala, was taken into custody during a raid on a second floor business address at Jilani Centre, Boulton Market.
The raid, carried out under the supervision of Fahad Khawaja, FIA Karachi assistant director, led to the seizure of a huge quantity of incriminating material. The material included currency notes of foreign and Pakistani currencies (worth Rs9 million), prize bonds worth of Rs1 million, an IPhone, a laptop having RMB transactions and foreign currency slips having millions of RMB, invoices of payments, ledger registers, cheque books of multiple accounts of different banks, loose cheques of different accounts and different banks, deposit slips, and Chinese bank account devices.
Memon could not give any plausible reply to questions which were put to him on the spot; rather, he admitted that he was involved in the illegal transfer of money. On his information, another suspect, identified as Aftab Afridi, was arrested at the Central Mall behind the Gul Plaza in Saddar. Incriminating material was also found during the raid, and an FIR was lodged against Momon and Afridi.
