KARACHI: As the government tightens nose against money laundering and unauthorized flight of capital, the Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has identified Ali Khan s/o Sardar Humayoon Khan, Asif Ali Gohar s/o Pir Ali Gohar and Adam Khan Jokhio s/o Abdul Rahim suspected to be involved in tax evasion and money laundering.

Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) noted unusually high value outward clearing cheques were deposited in the account of Ali Khan during the month of July 2015.

The funds which make up a total of Rs270 million were reportedly gifted to Ali Khan by his friend Asif Ali Gohar and in order to validate these transactions, Asif Ali Gohar submitted gift deeds for each of the transaction.

The above funds remained in the account for a period of about three months and out of these funds, 8 pay orders amounting to Rs80 million in all were issued in favor of Adam Khan Jokhio. Overall, funds amounting to Rs353 million had been credited in the account through outward clearing cheques and Rs326 million had been debited to the account through issuance of pay orders, transfers and inward clearing cheques since October 2014 to December 28, 2016.

Asif Ali Gohar is an employee of Ali Gohar & Co. Pvt Ltd seemingly a distribution company. The statement of bank account of Asif Ali Gohar reflects that during March 2014 to December 2016, funds amounting to Rs3.47 billion were credited while Rs3.46 billion were debited to the account. The name of Asif Ali Gohar’s father Pir Ali Gohar also appeared in the Panama Papers.

Adam Khan Jokhio is maintaining multiple accounts with different banks wherein he is conducting high value cash transactions. Adam Khan Jokhio is the owner of M/s Karim Housing Pvt Ltd.

The Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) observed that high value funds which amounted to Rs270 million had been credited in the account of Ali Khan by Asif Ali Gohar as a gift. Later on, 8 Pay Orders of Rs80 million were issued in favor of Adam Khan Jokhio by Ali Khan reportedly on account of purchase of property.

Apparently, Asif Ali Gohar is running/serving at a company named as Ali Gohar & Co (Pvt) Ltd. Adam Khan is the owner of Karim Housing (Pvt) Ltd while Ali Khan is an agriculturist. However, no clear relationship could be established among these three individuals with available documents.

They have been making high value transactions in their respective accounts without any plausible reasons, specifically the huge amount of money gifted to Ali Khan by Asif Ali Gohar do not make any real sense.

Although, Adam Khan Jokhio and Ali Khan possessed NTNs but seemingly did not pay income tax in to the government treasury despite the fact that they had been conducting and routing high value funds in their respective personal accounts.

The financial intelligence is being shared with Inland Revenue Intelligence & Investigation of FBR under the provision of AML Act, 2010 for the measure deemed appropriate.