ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has arrested five suspects involved in illegal currency exchange and transfer of money, the agency said on Sunday, amid a widening crackdown on black market currency traders.
The development comes days after the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s powerful military-run spy agency, held a meeting in Islamabad with senior officials from currency exchange companies, amid growing concern over the rupee’s depreciation, which fell to a 22-month low of Rs284.97 against the US dollar earlier this week.
Maj. Gen. Faisal Naseer, a deputy chief of the ISI, chaired the session, according to Malik Bostan, who attended the discussion and is the chairman of the Exchange Companies Association of Pakistan (ECAP), told Arab News. The FIA had begun raiding informal, unregulated money transfer, or ‘hundi’ and ‘hawala,’ operators and currency smuggling networks.
In a statement on Sunday, the agency said it was tightening the noose around networks involved currency smuggling and had conducted major operations in the southwestern Balochistan province that border Iran and Afghanistan.
“Five suspects involved in hawala, hundi and illegal currency exchange have been arrested,” the FIA said in a statement. “The suspects were arrested in raids in different areas of Quetta and Chaman.”
