From 2008 to 2020: High-profile cases ‘go slow’ in FIA

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ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) gropes in the dark in almost around two dozen high profile cases involving financial scams of over Rs250 billion since 2008.

Majority of cases either apparently go on ‘stop-and-go pattern’ since 2007-08 or the agency has put its investigation on the backburner, according to a study of official statistics and files. Some key cases have also hit roadblocks due to unexplained reasons during this time.

Investigators are currently dealing with more than 4,567 cases in different courts, according to official figures Geo News collected on authority. The agency is handling 11,567 inquiries following more than 35,000 complaints (70% complaints belong to cybercrime), revealed official statistics.

There was a long list of unsolved cases and investigations and senior officers at the FIA called spade a spade that they were facing multi-pronged challenges to pursue many key cases.

“We are dealing with around a dozen key financial scams where the agency hopes to recover a sum of estimated over Rs250 billion,” a senior official told Geo News. The FIA has around 41 prosecutors, 39 trained investigation officers and 22 officers to pursue collectively over 50,000 inquiries, cases and complaints filed either under anti-corruption, money laundering, treason or new cyber laws, revealed official record.

Nearly 9,000 officials are working with FIA, officials said adding around 320 staffers, including 22 officers, were facing different inquiries, which marred the agency's performance. Some 900 posts remain vacant in various wings of FIA.

Khanani and Kalia case is among high profile cases where investigation goes dormant. The probe period in this case is period is almost 12 years involving a total amount of Rs103 billion. Official record shows that Altaf Khanani and Munaf Khanani are the key accused and FIA Karachi kicked off a probe into this case in 2008. Investigators claimed to have retrieved the data of money laundered abroad from Pakistan to the tune of Rs103 billion from the main servers of Khanani & Kalia International. No further developments have been reported on that front.

There was no significant development into the Dubai properties and foreign accounts case, which involved over super rich 7,000 Pakistani nationals who were accused of violating the national laws while acquiring properties in the UAE. Official record shows that poor policy and international legal hurdles put the investigation on the backburner. The FIA officials claimed this case involved money laundering or hawala hundi of around Rs20 billion. The FIA investigators started probing an investment of estimated Rs1.1 trillion in Dubai’s real estate by Pakistanis in the past one and a half years. On Feb 9, 2018, the then DG FIA Bashir Memon directed director Sindh to initiate inquiries against Pakistani nationals against those who did not disclose their Dubai properties before FBR and the State Bank of Pakistan.

Official record further showed that there was no significant progress into sugar smuggling and money laundering probe link to owners of a few sugar mills.

FIA's two different teams were probing an alleged money laundering case against PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif and his family and PTI leaders Jahangir Khan Tareen and Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar. This inquiry involves an alleged money laundering of some Rs33 billion, revealed the official documents.

In the Axact fake degrees case, the FIA could not make any headway despite the passage of five years. This case involved Shoaib A Sheikh as a key accused, which involved an amount of Rs1 billion. Investigation is running on ‘stop-and-go pattern’ due to various interventions in this case, revealed the record. Axact allegedly took money from at least 215,000 people in 197 countries.

The FIA’s investigation went dormant into kickbacks in PIA Boeing-777 jets case. Five years have passed in this case, which involved Rs1 billion. Lt. General (retd) Naeem Khalid and many others were accused in this case, involving $8.5 million mismanagement.

The FIA was making slow progress in the Trading Development Authority Pakistan case since 2014. The case involves an estimated amount of Rs7 billion with key accused namely ex-PM Yusuf Raza Gilani and others. An anti-corruption court indicted Yusuf Raza Gilani and 25 others while around one and a half dozen accused were on the run.

Similarly, the Employees Old Age Benefits Institute scam case also remains dormant. This probe involves an estimated amount of Rs40 billion and the current status of the case was on a slow pace due to unavailability of certain records. Following a suo moto notice in this EOBI scam, the FIA was directed to probe the case in 2013.

Nine years have passed but the case of New Islamabad airport scam is dormant. It involved an estimated amount of Rs6 billion, where around a dozen senior officials of the Civil Aviation Authority were allegedly involved. The FIA investigators started a probe into the airport contract where the CAA is accused of awarding the contract worth Rs6 billion to a firm.

High profile cases of blackmailing (late judge Arshad Malik) against top leadership of PML-N, purported treason case against former defence minister Khawaja Asif and Asghar Khan case involving ex-chief of the army staff Aslam Baig, ex DG-ISI Asad Durrani, etc. also remain dormant in the FIA headquarter. Despite repeated requests, FIA's top management did not respond to Geo News' queries. Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed confirmed that the FIA’s performance was not up to the mark in cases involving mega financial scams since years. “I observed that investigation into some high profile cases goes slow. I am not happy with this performance. The FIA must pursue mega cases vigorously. For enhancing the agency's capacity, I would take up this matter with the prime minister soon,” he told this correspondent.