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Six held in US for sending money to Pakistan illegally

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: As part of the continuing crackdown on Pakistanis, six people were charged on Tuesday in New York with illegally transmitting millions of dollars from the United States to Pakistan by using unlicenced money-transfer businesses and failing to file currency-transaction reports.

While the exact origin and destination of the money is still under investigation, prosecutors said there was no indication that the money was connected with terrorism, narcotics or other illegal operations.

According to Christopher Christie, US attorney for New Jersey, in the last 18 months, more than $70 million passed through the operation en route to Pakistan. The money appears to have come from immigrant neighbourhoods in Brooklyn and Queens, where several unlicenced money transfer businesses operate. These businesses, in turn, took their funds to a licenced money transfer operation in Iselin, New Jersey, where a confederate deposited the money into a company’s bank accounts and directed that the money be wired to individuals in Pakistan, according to the New York Times.

The six Pakistani’s were arrested early on Wednesday on a criminal complaint that grew out of an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service and immigration and customs agents. They all appeared before a magistrate in United Stated District Court, where it was determined that three of them were in the country illegally. They face five to 10 years in prison if convicted on the currency charges.

Those charged are Syed Azhar of New Jersey an officer of Access Inc. of USA a licenced money transfer business based in Iselin. He is charged with transmitting the illegally amassed funds to Pakistan through the Access bank accounts. An assistant United States attorney maintained in court that Azhar was a flight risk and asked that he be held without bail. The judge set a hearing for Friday on the request.

Also named in the complaint was Ali Cheema of Iselin, an employee of Access Inc., who, investigators said, helped Azhar prepare phone receipts and documentation of the transactions. A Pakistani citizen, Cheema is a legal permanent resident of the United States. His bail was set at $100,000. Umer Dar of Bayonne, an employee of Kashmir Money Inc., an unlicenced money transfer business in Manhattan, also a naturalised American citizen was held on $100,000 bail.

The three Pakistani’s who were found to be in the country illegally were held without bail and could face action by the Immigration and Naturalisation Service.

They are Farooq Malik of Astoria, Queens, who works at Link to Link, a Long Island City business that is not licenced to transfer money overseas, Umar Mushtaq and Khurram Farid both of Brooklyn, who worked for Fast Global Services.

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