A customs court in Karachi on Wednesday ordered freezing of 20 bank accounts over complaints of money laundering and transfer of dollars.
The court was hearing three cases pertaining to money laundering, transfer of dollars out of the country and fake bank accounts, filed on the complaint of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).
An FBR official informed the court that a case was registered against a Karachi-based family for transfer of more than $400,000 to the United States.
The accused included Pervez Ali, his daughters Sara and Anum Ali and son Jibran, he said.
The investigating officer of the case said the accused got 11 bank accounts opened in 2016 for laundering money, and had so far transferred $494,500 to the US.
The second case pertained to a benami account in which more than Rs 369 million were deposited between July 2015 and June 2018.
The investigating officer said the third case pertained to four traders evading tax to the tune of more than Rs 1.26 billion over a period of five years. He said the accused, including trader Zor Talib Khan, got eight benami accounts opened from 2012 to 2017 and made transactions worth more than Rs 8 billion.
The FBR requested the court to order freezing of bank accounts in all the case, contending that it was feared that the amount deposited in them would be withdrawn. The court, while accepting the FBR’s request, ordered freezing of those accounts for 30 days.