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Money Laundering. These words sound familiar. Pakistanis have been listening for a while now. A disturbing fact is that a large chunk of Pakistani population is unaware of what money laundering actually is. Let me answer that question for you.
According to Wikipedia, money laundering is the act of concealing the transformation of profits from illegal activities and corruption into ostensibly “legitimate” assets. Money laundering is considered a crime all over the world!
As I mentioned earlier, these two words ‘money‘ and “laundering’ are familiar to us Pakistanis. When we hear this, the people who come into our minds are Ayyan Ali and Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif. I personally got to know about money laundering for the very first time in my life when Ayyan Ali was arrested. At that time, I did not bother to get hang of what money laundering was. But when the Panama Leaks surfaced and these allegations pointed towards the then PM of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, I did some research.
I will now explain the link between ‘Iqama’ and ‘Money Laundering’ in the simplest manner possible. Now, what is ‘Iqama’? As most of the people might know that, most of the countries in the Middle East, especially Gulf countries, do not provide nationalities no matter how long you have lived in the country. These countries provide you with Iqamas.
Iqama is basically a work permit. Someone holding an Iqama has the legal right to work and reside in that country. In other words, it can be said that Iqama is a sort of nationality. As far as I know, it is compulsory for a person holding an Iqama to take his salary from his or her employer firm. If he or she does not do that their Iqama can be canceled as per law.
Someone who is actually in Pakistan, and let’s say, holds a UAE Iqama can easily carry out money laundering. The question is how? The Iqama holder wishes to launder money from Pakistan. He goes to Switzerland and requests a local bank there to open an account for him. The details he provides for the account are of the Iqama he holds. He gets his account opened. He now transfers money earned through corrupt practices from Pakistan to his Swiss bank account using unfair means and methods.
Now, let’s suppose that the concerned Pakistani authorities somehow get to know about the Swiss account of that person and they want to investigate the matter. When they approach the bank to get access to the account, they are denied with the reasoning that in our records, the mentioned person is not a Pakistani but is a resident of UAE. So, only the UAE government can get the details about the account.
After reading this article, if you recall the allegations on Nawaz Sharif and try to relate them with this piece of writing, you will hopefully understand the whole scenario!
