KARACHI: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Friday raided the office of an entertainment company running a cinema in Karachi’s Saddar area, seizing its record and detaining one of its employees while investigating a case related to money laundering through hawala.

Sources said officials from the FIA’s anti-corruption circle raided the company’s office in a building which also housed its cinema and seized its financial records. They also detained the company’s staff member who looked after its key affairs, added the sources.

“The FIA has recently booked and arrested a suspect who was involved in Hawala/Hundi activities,” said a source. “During the course of a probe, names of several people emerged whose businesses benefited from the money laundering. The company has allegedly laundered over Rs100 million through Hundi and was also found to be actively involved in illegal transfer of money over the past few years.”

Later, the spokesman for Mandviwalla Entertainment while talking to a private news channel confirmed the FIA raid. “The company is a law abiding organisation and it is cooperating with the agency,” he said.

Published in Dawn, December 29th, 2018