Two held over hawala-hundi remanded in FIA custody

A sessions court has remanded two suspects in the custody of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in cases pertaining to illegal hawala-hundi and foreign currency trade.

Aqeel Abbas and Hamza Saleem were arrested by the FIA's Anti-Corruption Circle and Corporate Crime Circle during raids carried out in the Jamshed Road and Tariq Road areas on May 13.

The investigating officer produced the held suspects before the district and sessions judge (East) and sought their physical remand until May 26 for interrogation. However, the judge handed over their custody to the FIA until May 16 and ordered the IO to produce them on completion of their remand along with a progress report.

The FIRs have been registered under sections 5 and 23 of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act 1947 (Amendment) 2020 read with Section 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code. According to the FIA, Abbas was found to have connections with a hawala-hundi network that was reportedly being run from Dubai.

The other suspect, Saleem, was allegedly engaged in operating an illegal currency exchange business. It said that the raids led to the recovery of Rs4.5 million, $13,500, hundi transaction receipts, and a mobile phone from the suspects.