PESHAWAR: Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested 42 currency dealers and recovered Rs25 million from them during a crackdown in Karkhano Market and Chowk Yadgar.

FIA Director Mirwais Niaz told journalists here on Sunday that it was a joint operation conducted by 13 teams of the agency and city police. He said that the operation was carried out on the directions of the ministry of interior.

“We have arrested 42 people during the crackdown and recovered different currencies from them worth Rs25 million,” he said. He added that the crackdown was carried out to meet the requirements of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) that placed Pakistan on grey list for terror financing.

Mr Niaz said that the country needed to comply with FATF’s requirements to avoid adding to the black list. “Parallel banking or hundi-hawala is example of such activities,” he said. He said that several people were running that business without getting licence.

The official said that Chowk Yadgar had become globally notorious for hundi-hawala business. He said that the crackdown on hundi-hawala would be extended to all those areas where people were engaged in it. He said that they would also carry out raids in Peshawar and other parts of the province.

Mr Niaz said that hundi-hawala system was very old business; however, it could not be allowed as the money channeled through it could not be traced. The money could be used for terrorism or whitening black money. “Except taking strict action against illegal channels, we cannot clear Pakistan’s position at international forums,” he added.

The official said that at least 12 markets in Peshawar were involved in that illegal business. He said that traders were in the habit of intimidating the law enforcers by staging protests so FIA had to seek help of police department. He said that it was not first operation in Peshawar and FIA would continue to target the businessmen involved in illegal activities.

Mr Niaz said that existing laws were a bit weak that benefited the people involved in such activities. He said that 42 people were arrested in connection with illegal money transfers and about 10 of them were high profile.

He said that some of the arrested people were apparently Afghans while three of them had Afghan cards while others were suspected of having secured Pakistani identity cards. He said that identity of those people would be investigated.

The official said that illegal channels were being used for illegal activities.

He said that they recovered 23 million Pakistani rupees and US dollars, Qatari riyals, Turkish lira, Saudi riyal, Malaysian ringgit, UAE dirham, Euro and Chinese yuan and Thai baht amounting to Rs3 million.

Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2018