December 1, 2001	Saturday	Ramazan 15, 1422

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TOKYO, Nov 30: A 37-year-old Pakistani man was arrested by Japanese police on Friday on suspicion of illegally transferring money to Pakistan through an underground bank on behalf of Pakistani nationals in Japan.

The amount of money Mohammad Sohail sent to Pakistan over four years totalled three billion yen (roughly 1.5 billion rupees), investigators said. Sohail allegedly conspired with three other Pakistanis to send money to Pakistan on behalf of 1,100 people. Sohail allegedly violated Japan’s banking laws because such remittances require a special licence.

Under the alleged scheme, deposits were made in yen and then converted into rupees in the underground bank’s fund pool in Pakistan, the police said.

When Japanese companies exported products to companies with which Sohail was involved in Pakistan, they would export products at about 40 per cent of the regular prices to allow the Pakistani companies to pay less in tariffs. Those Pakistani firms would then pay the rest of the money owed for the products by using the underground bank’s fund pool in Pakistan.—dpa