A Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) investigation found that 52 transactions from five bank accounts belonging to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) should have raised a red signal. Imran Khan, the party’s chairman, made two significant withdrawals totaling Rs. 8 million from a PTI account in March 2013.
According to sources close to the investigation, the banks should have generated suspicious transaction reports (STRs) on 52 transactions, made by accounts associated with the PTI. The former prime minister Imran Khan himself made two withdrawals totaling Rs 8 million from PTI’s HBL Civic Centre, Islamabad account in March 2013. Khan verified the transactions with his own national identification card.
The investigation also identified nine people who took substantial cash withdrawals from party accounts by releasing their names. From the relevant banks, their names and national ID card numbers are being confirmed.
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Three remittances were also found to be linked to the PTI accounts by the investigation. Two of them came from Nasir Aziz and Romita Shetty and totaled US$25,000 and US$2,500, respectively. A third remittance from DIMAIO Ahmad Capital LLC in New York, USA, for US$2,480 was not picked up by the ECP.
Additionally, the PTI established a merchant account under the company name Naya Pakistan, which recorded more than Rs21 million in transactions between April and November 2013.
The investigation has shown that funds were transferred from a Wootton Cricket account, a Cayman Islands-registered offshore company owned by Arif Naqvi of the Abraaj Group, to an account for The Insaf Trust, which was opened by Imran Khan’s close friend Tariq Shafi in his capacity as the trust’s first chairman. Additionally, Shafi earned $575,000. He transferred funds from one of his personal accounts to a PTI stated account.
Shafi was questioned by the FIA investigative team in Lahore on Friday of last week. Shafi admitted to the detectives that he had never met Arif Naqvi and had no knowledge of any transfers to either his personal accounts or the accounts of the Insaf Trust. According to sources familiar with these proceedings, Shafi was questioned extensively about the Insaf Trust but insisted there was no relationship between the trust and PTI.