PESHAWAR: The Federal Investigation Agency on Friday arrested four people for allegedly smuggling foreign currency, operating illegal foreign currency exchanges, and doing illegal hundi-hawala trade here.

Foreign and local currency notes were recovered from suspects by the FIA’s Commercial Banking Circle during raids in the Chowk Yadgar area.

The banking circle’s team first arrested Haji Tahir over foreign currency smuggling and parallel banking and seized $60,300 and Rs1.2 million cash, according to officials.

FIA deputy director Afzal Khan Niazi told Dawn that Tahir failed to reveal the origin of the seized currency notes.

He said the team also took the currency smuggling suspect’s mobile phone into custody for forensic analysis and that it would be produced in the court as additional evidence of his crime for conviction.

Mr Niazi claimed that Tahir illegally sold and purchased foreign currency and that he was booked under the Foreign Exchange Regulations Act, 1947, and was being interrogated.

The FIA made other arrests in the same area over hundi-hawala and illegal currency trade.

Mr Niazi told Dawn that the suspects, including Liaquat, Shahzad and Hatim Gull, were taken into custody after seizing a total of Rs10.24 million, 3,070 British pounds and 1,000 Saudi riyals.

He said the FIA team recovered 1.533 million Pakistani rupees, 3,070 British pounds and 1,000 Saudi riyals from Liaquat, Rs6.240 million from Hatim Gull and Rs4.7 million from Shahzad after they failed to justify their possession.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2023