KARACHI: Inland Revenue Intelligence and Investigation has launched a crackdown against individuals and entities who have been smurfing the ill-gotten money in offshore tax havens.
Information was received from multiple sources that illegal and tax evaded money have been deposited in far flung bank accounts in tax exempt areas to avoid taxes or to conceal its true source and identity of culprits.
The Directorate of Inland Revenue Intelligence & Investigation has started investigations in most of these cases but initially is taking the cases where substantive amount is involved whose pattern of transactions in the above accounts reveal that very high volume of funds were routed in their accounts without any economic sense, which were many a times deposited and also withdrawn through cash.
In some cases these suspects are declaring business as a smokescreen to deceive the agencies and are involved in smuggling, under-invoicing, narcotics, hawala hundi, kidnapping and tax evasion etc.
They have transacted millions of rupees in various locations for the purposes of smurfing the money for avoidance of taxation and used this proceeds of crime for money laundering and terror financing.
So far Directorates have investigated 24 such cases against these culprits and in various cases either FIRs have been registered or their properties are attached.
The Director General, Intelligence & Investigation-IR, Islamabad, Dr. Bashirullah Khan Marwat, following the vision of the present Prime-Minister and his government has explicitly directed all the Directorates in the country to proceed against those culprits who are involved in such heinous and illegal activities of money laundering which is not only causing heavy losses to the national exchequer and economy but also damaging the image of the country on international fora.