RAWALPINDI, May 10: The Airport Security Force (ASF) at Benazir Bhutto International Airport on Thursday arrested a passenger for attempting to smuggle huge amount of foreign currency equivalent to over Rs162.5 million — one of the biggest seizures in the airport history.

Jamshaid Alam, an expatriate settled in Dubai, was handed over to the Customs Department after the foreign currency was recovered from his suitcase during security check-in.

Arbab Qaisir, Deputy Collector Customs Investigation Wing, when contacted, said: “The scope of investigation has been enlarged after getting the mobile phone data of the passenger who had been a frequent traveller.”

He said: “We will investigate on different lines to ascertain whether the amount is being smuggled out of the country for funding the terror groups or it is a money laundering case.”

He said that the money was seized as the check-in of Emirates flight for Dubai EK-615 was in progress. He said that the passenger reached the ASF security counter and put his baggage on the scanning machine which indicated the currency tightly wrapped in a plastic sheet.

Later, the Customs staff took the baggage into custody and recovered 5.4 million Saudi riyals, 667,520 UAE dirhams, 61,645 Qatari riyals, 28,940 British pounds, 3,465 euros, 75,650 Kuwait dinars, 7,140 Omani riyals, 2,300 French franks, 11,984 US dollars, 327 Bahraini dinars and 965 Canadian dollars.

Arbab Qaisir said: “We will try to trace the real owner of the currency”.