QUETTA: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) late on Wednesday night arrested an employee of the Balochistan government for his alleged involvement in money laundering.

The accused, who was identified as Agha Sabir Hussain, was allegedly running an illegal money exchange business in Quetta for a long time. An FIR has been registered against him.

Sources said FIA had been in search of Sabir Hussain for some time. A team of the agency raided a place where he was thought to be hiding and arrested him.

The agency’s deputy director, Bashir Somroo, told Dawn that the accused had made transactions amounting to billions of rupees through Hundi and Hawala. An initial investigation revealed that he had laundered over Rs1 billion through Hundi and Hawala.

Mr Somroo said Sabir Hussain is an employee of the Services and General Administration Department of the Balochistan government. He said more arrests in the case could not be ruled out.

Meanwhile, in a joint operation FIA and intelligence personnel arrested a senior official of the House Building Finance Corporation based in Karachi for allegedly conducting Hundi and Hawala business for Iranian intelligence, sources said.

The accused was identified as Syed Wisal Haider Naqvi. Souces said the accused allegedly arranged funds in Pakistan for the intelligence agency.

Also in Karachi, security agencies have arrested 13 people for allegedly spying for a foreign intelligence agency. They said officials of FIA and an intelligence agency were interrogating the arrested persons.

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2022