KARACHI/LAHORE, Nov 8: The Federal Investigation Agency arrested on Saturday two directors and as many employees of a known foreign exchange firm for ‘illegally’ transferring foreign currency from Pakistan.

The FIA director general, Tariq Pervaiz, told Dawn that Javed Khanani and Munaf Kalia of Khanani and Kalia International were arrested in Lahore and Karachi on charges of money laundering.

He said action was initiated following reports of flight of capital from the country. “The suspects were arrested after an initial inquiry that established their involvement in Hawala and Hundi business,” he added.

The FIA chief said investigators had seized an important piece of evidence — a computer.

“We are trying to retrieve the data through experts as the suspects deleted the transaction on daily basis.”

In Lahore, the FIA arrested Javed Khanani and two employees.“The franchise of Khanani and Kalia International — M/s Duniya Enterprise — in Gujranwala — has been involved in ‘physical’ transfer of foreign currency from Pakistan besides running ‘Hawala or Hundi business’ illegally,” Azam Joya, the FIA’s top official in Lahore told Dawn.

“At the moment we cannot say how much foreign currency the franchise has physically transferred from here, but it will be known once the investigation is complete,” he maintained.

In a significant development, the dollar-rupee parity difference between the inter-bank and open market dropped to 35 paisa from Rs3-4.

The FIA raided Duniya Enterprise on Wednesday (Nov 5) and arrested its manager, Rustam Ali Khan, and accountant Tariq Mahmood. Four receipts of Hawala payment and a sum of Rs 786,000 that was yet to be paid were seized.

Copies of the identity cards of Hawala clients were also confiscated.

And the most important prize of all — a computer that contained “revealing” data.

Mr Joya said preliminary investigations had revealed that directors Javed Khanani and Munaf Kalia shared “equal and direct” responsibility for the “illegal business”.

He said that Khanani and Kalia carried out ‘40 per cent’ of all money exchange transactions in the country. It has 24 branches and nine franchises across the country.

“The franchise in question was also violating the State Bank of Pakistan’s directives in its transactions. Besides physical transfer of foreign currency, it was involved in having transactions in which payment would be made in Pak rupees but in return the foreign currency was not deposited with local banks,” he elaborated.

The FIA director said that a special team had been constituted to ‘thoroughly’ investigate the matter and more raids on other branches and franchises of Khanani and Kalia would only be initiated if it was established that they were involved in any ‘illegality’.

He further maintained that since there were reports that some money changers were involved in ‘illegal’ transfer of foreign currency from Pakistan, the FIA was ‘vigilant’ and monitoring the companies and was gather intelligence reports about them.

The FIA has registered a case against the above franchise under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act and the Cyber Crime Act.