ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Interior and Narcotics Control Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) will be transformed into a robust department so that it performs role as country's premiere investigative agency.
The minister said while chairing a meeting on Monday on new initiatives, vision for future, and targets of FIA in the current year.
All resources will be used to bring about a discernable change in FIA's performance, he added.
The meeting was attended by Secretary Interior, DG FIA, National Coordinator NACTA, various Additional DGs and directors of FIA from all over the country, besides high ranking NADRA officials.
During the meeting, the minister directed the FIA authorities to launch an immediate crackdown against Hawala/Hundi and keep a strict watch over suspicious transactions.
Under the recently formulated National Action Plan (NAP) on counter terrorism, the minister stressed FIA in collaboration with financial monitoring unit (FMU) of Ministry of Finance have been tasked to perform a lead role in tracking all suspicious and illegal transactions to curb the menace of terrorist financing.
In this regard, the minister was informed that since the formulation of NAP, as part of financial monitoring mechanism of FIA, 18 cases of Hawala/Hundi have been detected in which 24 accused were arrested and an amount of Rs 71.5 Million was recovered. Similarly, 3 cases of suspicious transaction and 5 cases of anti- money laundering were detected in which 8 accused were arrested.
The minister was further informed that on the directions of Ministry of Interior on the issue of spurious drugs, since Jan 2014, 27 raids were conducted across the country, in which 20 persons were arrested and spurious drugs amounting to tens of thousands of rupees were confiscated.
Moreover, within one last year, 88 cases of Anti Money Laundering Act (AMLA) were registered under which 270 accused were arrested whereas 998 cases of electricity and gas theft were registered in which 234 accused were arrested.
The minister stressed that in the current security scenario, cyber space is being used increasingly by criminal and terrorist elements to their advantage for which an appropriate response is needed from FIA immediately.
Briefing the Minister on the issue, DG FIA informed that since Jan 2014, 305 cases of cyber crimes were dealt, and VoIP equipment worth Rs 83.68 million was seized while 270 people arrested.
The minister also observed that there have been complaints of hassle by the public during immigration at the airports for which a mechanized system be evolved to fully facilitate the traveling public.
A system of snap checking should be established to identify and punish those officials causing unnecessary delays to the public.
The minister was informed that an efficient complaint management system is being launched at major airports of the country under which public will be able to register their complaints through SMS to the FIA high-ups.
He was further informed that in compliance to his earlier directions, since Jan 2014, around 1500 pending cases from previous years have been cleared and backlog reduced considerably.
The minister was informed that in the FY 2013-14, an amount of Rs six billion was recovered under various heads by various wings of FIA which is an exponential increase as compared to the corresponding period of 2012-13, during which only Rs 340 Million were recovered.
The minister concluded by emphasizing that an efficient performance based system be launched in FIA and urgent steps be adopted for digitalizing its processes and enquiries.
In this regard, NADRA shall provide all assistance regarding equipment and training to establish a digital monitoring system with-in FIA for which immediate steps be taken, Minister directed.
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