LAHORE: The Federal Investi­gation Agency (FIA) arrested on Sunday six suspects for allegedly running the illegal business of hundi and hawala in the city and recovered over Rs300 million in foreign and Pakistani banknotes from them.

An FIA corporate crime circle team headed by Deputy Director Jamil Ahmed Khan Mayo conducted a raid on the Pracha currency exchange in Anarkali and arrested the suspects for running the illegal business.

Those arrested were identified as Nauman Sultan, Zahid Malik, Saghir, Ishtiaq, Qadeer Malik and Amin Khan.

An amount of over Rs300m — including Rs140m in Pakistani banknotes, 5m Iranian riyals, 47,045 Qatari riyals, 69,020 Swiss francs, 14,550 Indian rupees and 1.3m US dollars — was recovered from the suspects.

A case under section 4, 8, 23 FER Act, 109 PPC, 4 AML Act has been registered against the suspects.

The FIA has so far arrested a number of people involved in hundi/hawala business in a province-wide crackdown.

The FIA’s Punjab director, Dr Usman Anwar, praised the efforts of the corporate crime circle and asked it to expedite the action against those involved in flight of capital from the country.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2017