ISLAMABAD: The US state department has designated Pakistan-based Altaf Khanani group as a money-laundering organisation (MLO) for facilitating the illicit movement of billions of dollars for crime and terror outfits, Dawn reported on Saturday.

The 32nd US International Narcotics Control Strategy report delivered to the Congress on Wednesday revealed that the Altaf Khanani group was designated as a “transnational organised crime group” in November 2015.

The report said that the Khanani group “facilitates illicit money movement between, among others, Pakistan , the UAE, the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia.”

The report also mentioned that the outfit “offers money laundering services to a diverse clientele, including Chinese, Colombian, and Mexican organised crime groups and individuals associated with designated terrorist organisations”.

Describing Pakistan as a “strategically located country at the nexus of south, central and western Asia, with a coastline along the Arabian Sea,” the report noted that Pakistan’s porous borders with Afghanistan, Iran and China facilitated the smuggling of narcotics and contraband to overseas markets.

“The country suffers from financial crimes associated with tax evasion, fraud, corruption, trade in counterfeit goods, contraband smuggling, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling/trafficking, terrorism and terrorist financing,” the report said. Pakistan’s FIA lacked the capacity to pursue complicated financial investigations, it said.

Last year, Altaf Khanani pleaded guilty to a money laundering charge before a US court and signed a plea agreement on October 27. He was held in September last year following a sting operation by the US drug enforcement administration. The US district court of Florida had indicted him on 14 counts of money laundering in June 2015.

Khanani was among the four men the US blacklisted in October for purported ties to an organisation accused of laundering money for drug traffickers and Chinese, Colombian and Mexican crime groups. Among them was his son Obaid Khanani.

Mohammad Javed Khanani, Khanani’s brother, and director of Khanani and Kalia International (KKI) money changers, was also party to the crime. He died in December 2016 after falling from an under-construction building in Karachi.

