KARACHI: A rickshaw driver in a poor locality of the city was caught off guard when he discovered transactions of three billion rupees had been made in his name from a private bank account, it emerged on Saturday.

A resident of Korangi, Muhammad Rasheed, came to know about the colossal transaction from his bank account when the Supreme Court-mandated Joint Investigation Team (JIT) — set up to probe into money laundering cases — summoned him and recorded his statement.

“I was asked to visit the FIA [Federal Investigation Agency] office where officials showed me the record of my bank account,” he told a private news channel.

FIA team has been investigating money laundering cases since September

“They said that transactions of some three billion rupees were made through my bank account. I shared all the facts with the investigators and told them that I opened a bank account only once in my life when I was hired by a private company in 2004. It was a salary account and I worked for the company for merely 15 days. I quit to start my own work. Other than this, I am unaware of any other detail.”

When queried about his former employer, he said he was unable to recall its name and only remembered that its office was situated somewhere near Tariq Road.

Rasheed was confident that he had managed to convince FIA officials about his innocence.

“My family and I live in a rented place. I work hard to make both ends meet. I can’t even imagine such a huge amount. I suspect my salary account was being used for all those transactions,” he said.

Since September, the JIT has been probing money laundering cases revealing several suspicious accounts during the inquiry. One of which was a private bank account of a food vendor in Orangi that was found to have more than two billion rupees.

Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2018