400 people including politicians and bureaucrats benefited from laundered money

KARACHI: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has prepared a list of 400 individuals who benefited from laundered money, an official of the agency revealed to Geo News.

The official who asked to remain anonymous told this correspondent that the list of 400 individuals included politicians, bureaucrats and former ministers from the Sindh government. The list also includes bureaucrats who have passed away.

The FIA is currently investigating 32 people in relation to money laundering from fictitious accounts, including former president Asif Ali Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur. Zardari’s close aide Hussain Lawai was arrested in July this year in connection with the probe, whereas Omni Group chairman Anwar Majeed and his son, Abdul Ghani Majeed, were also taken into custody earlier this month.

It is expected that in the second phase, 400 individuals would be sent notices and then they would be made part of the investigation. 

A joint investigation team constituted by the FIA to probe the scam held a meeting in Islamabad on Monday, where the latest breakthroughs were discussed, sources said.

The sources shared that Anwar Majeed is being interrogated regarding the alleged transactions, and in most of his responses he has said: “the chief financial officer would know”.

Zardari, Talpur record statements before FIA in money laundering case

Sources say former president and his sister were questioned for around 35 minutes

The agency, in its recent raids at the sugar mills owned by the Omni Group in Badin, confiscated computer hard-disks along with other records and weapons, the sources added. A total of 27 disks were recovered, including a virtual storage device which contains data on all the mills. Two digital video recorders were also seized during the raids.

The confiscated hard-disks are protected by passwords, and decoding them is taking time, the sources informed.