Daily Times

Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Additional Director General Basharat Mehmood Shehzad, on Tuesday, called for the need to provide same government records to the body as are available with the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in order to tackle money laundering in a more effective manner.

He said this while briefing a meeting of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Interior while adding that there were many flaws in the Antimoney Laundering (AML) Act 2010, due to which the agency was unable to achieve results. The committee was chaired by Raja Khurram Nawaz.

FIA’s additional director-general, in his briefing, pointed out multiple flaws in the current anti-money laundering laws and cited them for being unable to access public records.

In particular, records were not received on time, and cases were left pending, Shehzad added.

He went on demanding, “FIA should have the same access to government records as NAB has,” while pointing out that amendments were required to the anti-money laundering law to ensure this.

Shehzad noted that NAB had the authority to take records from any institution but if the FIA required bank records, the officials had to take permission from a sessions judge.

The official said this could take months and sometimes, the sessions judge would, in the end, not grant permission to access the records. In March, Prime Minister Imran Khan presided over a high-level meeting, which decided to amend the Antimoney Laundering (AML) Act, 2010, with stricter punishments to be imposed in an effort to bring individuals involved in money laundering to book.

A member of the NA standing committee remarked that if there was no limit to the authority of NAB, which he described being operating under a “black law,” FIA should get the records.

He wondered what difficulty the FIA faced if there was already a process to procure records.

The FIA official responded by explaining their investigations could be sped up if records taking six months were being acquired in six days.

Shehzad also briefed the committee on benami and fake accounts. He maintained that in reality, no account was ‘benami’ since it was under someone’s name. There were two types of accounts: fake and benami, he clarified.

According to the FIA official, a fake account was registered under a person who had died while their account was still active. On the other hand, a benami account was one where the transactions of account holders do not match their income.

“In a benami account, the account holder’s transactions don’t match the earnings.” The FIA went on adding that in a benami account, the account is not operated by the owner, “such accounts are opened in collaboration with the banks.” Shehzad said it remained to be seen what punishment laws could be imposed on bank managers and staff, involved in this activity.

He pointed out cases, where accounts were opened in the name of unwitting of ‘chai walas’ (tea sellers) and ‘falooda walas’ (ice-cream sellers), who had never been to the bank.He noted that the complicity of bankers in opening such accounts could not be ignored.

The FIA official noted that in anti-money laundering investigations, banks were supposed to report such accounts and transactions. He said that in previous years, close to 500 such cases were reported to relevant institutions.

Shehzad also asked why no action had so far been taken against the banks found to be involved with operating benami accounts.

In each of the FIA’s enquiries, he added, at least one or two banks “were certainly involved” and many times it was discovered that the “bank presidents were also involved,” who allowed ndividuals on lower management strata to do whatever they wanted.

Talking about cybercrime, the FIA officials stated that they had received many complaints with regards to cybercrime, which has increased the workload of the agency. The standing committee then went on asking FIA for a report on investigations against housing societies.

Committee chairman Raja Khurram Nawaz regretted that many “poor people” had made deposits in housing societies and were to lose significantly if they failed.

He asked about the number of investigations opened against housing societies as well as the number of people who had been arrested for fraudulent dealings.

As the committee meeting went underway, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb raised concerns about the FIA briefing.

She further maintained the briefing could not help the committee examine the FIA performance over the past five years.

Instead, a list of those being investigated since the creation of the FIA should be presented, she remarked.

The PML-N spokesperson said that the media only discussed the cases of parliamentarians.

Aurangzeb added, “If FIA focussed on its capability and facilities, there wouldn’t be a need for NAB.” The agency should also look at the standards employed by investigative agencies in other countries, she noted.

“Look at the example of Hassan and Hussain Nawaz’s case,” she said, adding the case was sent to Britain “but the allegations could not be proven there.”