As many as eight people have been booked for allegedly running illegal foreign currency exchange businesses and hawala/hundi (illegal financial instruments used in remittances and credit transactions). The Federal Investigation Agency has also seized local and foreign currency from them, The Express Tribune has learnt.
The FIA conducted a crackdown after receiving a tipoff about such illegal businesses in Gujrat and Mandi Bahauddin.
FIA Punjab Director Qudratullah Khan constituted two FIA Corporate Crime Circle teams for the operation. One of the teams conducted a raid in Malakwal, Mandi Bahauddin, and arrested Iftikhar Ahmed and Sheeraz Ahmed, owners of King Enterprises, a front for a hawala/hundi business. The team seized Rs1.7 million and an undisclosed amount of foreign currency from the office. A member of the team told The Express Tribune that the owners had failed to produce a licence for currency exchange.
In another raid, an FIA team arrested two hawala dealers, Mazhar Abbas Abbasi and Arshad Mehmood Abbasi, of Abbasi Traders on GT Road, Kharian, Gujrat. Mazhar Abbas Abbasi and Arshad Mehmood Abbasi too failed to produce a licence for currency exchange. The team seized Rs500,000 and an undisclosed amount of foreign currency.
Shahid Imran and Bilal Ahmed were arrested in separates raids from Phalia and Khairian. Imran was arrested for operating an illegal currency exchange business out of a jewellery shop in Phalia, Mandi Bahauddin. Hassan Babar, owner of Babar Jeweller, could not be arrested as he was away when an FIA team raided his business.
Another FIA team arrested Bilal Ahmed of Chaudhry Enterprises on GT Road, Kharian, Gujrat.
However, Shabbir Ahmed, another dealer at the shop, managed to flee before the raid.
Four cases against the eight people arrested have been registered with the FIA’s Corporate Crime Circle police station in Lahore.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 5th, 2014.