Five acquitted in money laundering case.

PESHAWAR -- A special tribunal (foreign exchange regulation) has acquitted five employees of a privately-owned currency exchange company charged by the Federal Investigation Agency with launching money and illegally possessing foreign currency notes.

Additional sessions judge Shahid Mahmood accepted an application of the five accused under Section 265-K of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which empowers the trial court to acquit an accused before the conclusion of a trial when there is no probability of his conviction on the basis of the available evidence.

The accused included Pakistan Currency Exchange branch manager Anwarul Haq, operation manger Sabihuddin, cashier Naseer Asghar, and employees Sohail Humayun and Sher Khan.

The FIA's Commercial Banking Circle had registered an FIR against the management and staff members of the Pakistan Currency Exchange, Peshawar, on Nov 26, 2015, under sections 4 and 8 of the Foreign Exchange Regulation (FER) Act, 1947, sections 3 and 4 of the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Act, 2010, and sections 201 and 206 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

They were charged by FIA with doing illegal currency exchange business

The FIA claimed that the accused were involved in the illegal business of foreign currency exchange and had recovered Rs43,907 million Pakistani rupees, 192,210 US dollars, 1,000 Swiss francs, 91,000 Japanese yens, 6,737 Saudi riyals, 8,200 Australian dollars, 1,205 euros, 7,820 UAE dirhams and 7,350 Canadian dollars during a raid.

Farooq Malik, lawyer for the accused, said the Pakistan Currency Exchange was registered with the State Bank of Pakistan and the Security Exchange Commission of Pakistan and carried out business legally.

He said during investigation, a lot of correspondence had...