Khidmat-e-Khalq Foundation (KKF) member Kaif-ul-Wara has confessed to laundering money on behalf of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and sending the funds to the United Kingdom (UK), sources inside the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) revealed.
According to the sources, Kaif-ul-Wara was interrogated for three hours by FIA officials in connection with his alleged role in collecting large amount of funds from Karachi city through extortion and then sending it to UK via KKF accounts.
It is important to mention here that KKF is the charity wing of MQM which had been most active in Karachi.
During interrogation, Wara also admitted that the money sent to UK was collected by KKF as extortion money from different sources. He said the responsibility of collecting and depositing money in the charity’s bank accounts was delegated to several individuals, adding that the money was then routed to UK.
FIA had also sent notices to 10 MQM leaders and summoned them for questioning on February 15. All these leaders have been associated with the party’s charity wing in different capacities and would appear before the FIA’s Counter-Terrorism Wing, Islamabad, on the above-mentioned date.
Sources said FIA officials would interrogate the MQM leaders about their income sources and fund collection mechanism. In addition, they would also be questioned in regard to their facilitators in the money laundering network and how the funds were utilised later.
Moreover, the sources also revealed that the leaders summoned by FIA included, Sagheer Ahmed, Mohammad Shahid, Mohammad Zubair, Mohammad Tahir, Manzoor Ahmed, Kafeel Wara, Rauf Mughal, Kamal Siddiqui, Rafiq Rajput and Mohammad Imran.
In 2017, a money laundering case was registered against MQM’s founder and supreme leader Altaf Hussain and KKF in Karachi. The case was later transferred to the FIA’s Counter-Terrorism Wing, Islamabad.
Last week, an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Islamabad published an advertisement in UK’s daily newspaper The Guardian declaring Altaf Hussain as a proclaimed offender in the murder case of Dr Imran Farooq, a senior MQM leader who was assassinated in London on September 2010.
According to the advertisement, Altaf Hussain had been ordered to appear before ATC No 1 in Islamabad, within 30 days of the publication of the notice. This is the first time that a legal notice against Altaf had been published in the UK daily by Pakistani authorities.
It merits mention here that the above-mentioned court had issued non-bailable arrest warrants for the MQM founder during the hearing of Dr Imran Farooq murder case.
