PESHAWAR: The Federal Investigation Agency’s Commercial Banking Circle on Wednesday arrested a man and recovered Rs229 million cash from his possession during a raid in Andar Sheher area of the provincial capital, officials said.

They said the agency formed a raiding team after receiving information about a hundi-hawala operator in Andr Sheher Bazaar.

The team raided a shop, and arrested an accused, identified as Ataullah. The team also recovered local currency from hidden cavities in the shop. The currency was mostly sent from Afghanistan, according to a statement.

The statement said that the agency was also conducting raids to arrest another accused, Khalid Manzoor, who was the gang leader involved in gold smuggling and hundi-hawala.

“We conducted a raid but the accused was not present at the place,” a senior FIA official told Dawn, adding that Manzoor was also charged in another FIR.

Cases were registered against both the accused under relevant sections of the Foreign Exchange Regulations Act.

On Sept 7, 2023, FIA, as part of its crackdown on illegal forex trade and smuggling of US dollars, raided multiple shops in Chowk Yadgar here, the province’s largest currency market, and closed 45 shops in the “hub of illegal currency business” in the provincial capital.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2024