KARACHI, Jan 29: A sessions court on Saturday indicted four detained forex dealers in a money laundering case.

They denied the charges and opted to contest the case.

District and Sessions Judge (south) Hasan Feroz summoned all prosecution witnesses with the direction to record their evidence on Feb 19.

According to the prosecution, the Federal Investigation Agency registered a case against the accused on Nov 15, 2008 after initiating an inquiry on a complaint (118/08) lodged by the State Bank of Pakistan regarding illegal transfer of money abroad.

It said that beside the two official websites, the forex dealers' firm had fraudulently created a website and databases “Exchange plus” and “Foxpro” with criminal intentions without declaring it to the SBP and used them for illegal transactions.

It added that the company had also installed a huge computer system at it's head office situated at Saima Trade Centre on I.I. Chundrigar Road, which enabled the company's franchise offices set up across the country an automatic access to the main system in order to facilitate such transactions and opened hundred of thousands accounts in the different banks across the country.

The prosecution said that the accused, in connivance with other directors and partners of exchange companies and money changers, had used the services of Al-Zarooni exchange in the UAE, having Atif Aziz Polani and Jawed Qasim as the focal persons to assist all such dealings while the services of a number of exchange firms and agents in foreign countries were utilised that caused a loss of billions of rupees to the national exchanger.

A case (FIR 76/2008) was registered against them under Sections 5/8, 22/23 of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947 read with Section 7, 8 & 20 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Ordinance (PECO), 2007 and Sections 420, 467, 471, 477-A of the Pakistan Penal Code at the FIA crime circle, Karachi.

Later, a judicial magistrate exonerated the accused from the charges that fall within the ambit of PECO.