RAWALPINDI: The Fed­eral Investigation Agency (FIA) has established a special squad to curb money laundering and illegal currency exchanges in line with the government’s commitments to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

This was stated by FIA’s Islam­abad Director Waqar Ahmed Chauhan while presiding over a meeting held in the capital on Wednesday. Officers of the commercial banking circle also participated in the meeting.

Mr Chauhan said the special squad would be working under the joint supervision of Additional Director Waheedur Rehman Khattak and Jawad Ahmed.

He directed the FIA special squad to take strict action against illegal currency trade and branches of money exchange companies, if they were found involved in illegal business.

Besides, Mr Chauhan reprimanded those officers of the department who did not show performance and had failed to meet expectations. Likewise, the officers whose performance was found to be satisfactory were appreciated for their work.

The director asked the FIA officials to complete all long-standing inquiries as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, the FIA arres­ted a key suspect involved in human smuggling and registered a case against him on Wednesday.

The FIA said the suspec­ted human smuggler had been cheating people and was invo­lved in a fraud of Rs1.6 million.

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2021