KARACHI – A special banking court on Thursday exonerated two foreign exchange dealers from all charges of money laundering. Judge Mir Muhammad Sheikh granted the 249-A acquittal application submitted by the alleged accused Zafar Paracha and Salman Paracha through their counsel.
Earlier, the case Investigation Officer (IO) had submitted the final challan of the case, requesting the court to exclude the names of both the suspects from all charges but it was refused by the trial court, which ordered that the case be proceeded and eyewitnesses presented before the court.
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had arrested Zafar and Salman of the Paracha International Money Exchange (PIME) company and two bothers named Rauf Ahmed Khan Lodhi and Farooq Ahmed Khan Lodhi of the Lodhi Enterprises Ltd for their alleged involvement in the scam.
The charge-sheet was submitted in the trail court stating that the suspects had illegally transferred an amount of over Rs 3 billion abroad through 11 bogus accounts opened by the suspects in different banks. The investigation officer named 30 prosecution witnesses in the charge-sheet.
PIME director Salman Paracha, Mohammad Ashfaq of the Al-Hasan Money Exchange, Ahmed Mujtaba, Muneer Moti, Faisal and Babar were shown as absconding accused, as they did not appear before the court. Another suspect Atif Polani was stated to be already in jail custody in another case.
A case (FIR 07/2010) was registered against the suspects under sections 5, 8, 22 and 23 of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947; sections 7, 8 and 20 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Ordinance, 2007 and sections 420, 467, 474, 477, 109 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code.
