Director General Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Bashir Memon told the Supreme Court on Wednesday that 4,221 Pakistanis have foreign bank accounts and assets in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Saqib Nisar, was heading the two-member bench in the sou motu case pertaining to foreign bank accounts assets of Pakistanis.
The DG FIA revealed that information during today's hearing after when the Chief Justice asked, "FIA should inform us how many Pakistanis have assets and accounts in the UAE."
Justice Nisar said, "We had earlier ordered that we be informed regarding how many people have foreign accounts as we should know who has not declared them." He further observed, "Billions have been kept in bank accounts in Switzerland and Dubai."
He continued, "People looted the money and took it abroad."
While responding to this, the DG FIA remarked, "They took the money abroad as per the law in 1992. Some took the money abroad through lawful means but there are also people who looted tax money and transferred it abroad."
DG FIA continued, "That money was taken to the United States, Canada and Europe."
He added that FIA don't have the authority for mutual assistance saying, "A plan of action needs to be made to bring back this money."
Then, the Chief Justice remarked, "A mechanism is needed to end white-collar crime. We will need to come up with a way to remove legal hurdles."
afterwards, the Court summoned senior lawyer and legal expert Ahmer Bilal Soofi to assist the court.
Furthermore, the DG FIA said, "Money is also sent abroad through 'hundi'."
Justice Nisar said, "This is why a mechanism is needed to ensure that money cannot be sent abroad. The mechanism should not be such that a person travelling abroad even has to declare as little as $200."
He further added, "We cannot impose such an illogical restriction as people also go abroad to shop. We just want to stop the transfer of money to foreign countries."
The hearing of the case has been adjourned till August 1.
