Three agents involved in the Hawala and Hundi business were arrested by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Friday and dollars worth Rs420 million were recovered from them.
According to the investigative agency, suspects Imran, Kamran and Rizwan were arrested in a raid conducted at the office of a private firm in Kharadar area of Karachi.
FIA Sindh Director Sultan Khawaja said that the suspects had sent money abroad through Hawala and Hundi. “A case has been lodged under Section 33 and 489 against the suspects,” he said.
On April 11, the FIA had arrested a man from the city’s Saddar area over his suspected involvement in transactions through illegal ‘Hawala and Hundi’ business. Identified as Muhammad Khalid, the accused worked for a private trade company. The investigative agency had raided his office in Saddar’s Kohinoor market and found Rs4 million cash.
The FIA team had also found cheques of Rs10.5 million. The investigators had seized laptop, foreign currency and other documents from his office. On April 6, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry had said the government had directed FIA to launch a full-fledged operation against dollar hoarding, and speculative currency trade. In a tweet on his social media account, he had said the operation was being launched in coordination with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and Ministry of Finance.