FIA Traces Nearly Rs690 Million in Pakistan Online Gambling Probe and Seeks Freeze on Faisalabad-Linked Account

The Federal Investigation Agency has traced suspicious banking transactions worth nearly Rs690 million in an alleged Rs120 billion online gambling and illegal money transfer network, and has asked a bank to block debits on the account of a Faisalabad-linked company. For PSPs and acquiring teams, the important part is not the headline number; it is the use of corporate accounts, branchless banking and digital payment rails to move gambling proceeds and then push them offshore.

1. The latest investigation report says the company linked to Faisalabad is tied to four transactions totaling Rs49.165 million. Investigators are checking the commercial purpose of those transfers and whether they were part of a wider settlement network. The case is registered as FIR No. 32/2026 with FIA Composite Circle Faisalabad.
2. A central line of inquiry is the onward transfer of funds to Chinese beneficiaries allegedly connected to online gambling operations. The original FIR names a Chinese associate, Michael, who is said to have handled the network’s international operations. The report also says the full trail to the Chinese beneficiaries has not yet been conclusively established.
3. Investigators believe money collected through corporate accounts and digital payment facilities in Pakistan may have been settled overseas through hawala/hundi arrangements. They identified several third-party accounts that received large sums from the principal accused without any established legitimate business relationship, including two recipient accounts with transactions of about Rs490 million and Rs150 million.
4. The account holders, mostly from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, were issued notices to join the investigation but have not appeared. A representative for one account holder told investigators that the individual lives in Malaysia and that the funds received were meant for onward settlement through hawala/hundi channels, but that statement has not been independently verified and the account holder’s own statement is still awaited.
5. According to the report, several Single Member Companies were incorporated to obtain corporate branchless banking accounts and bypass daily deposit limits on individual accounts. FIA has obtained corporate records from the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, account-opening forms, banking documents and transaction histories, and says there are significant discrepancies between the declared business activities of the companies and the transactions in their accounts.
6. The probe covers records linked to the digital payment platform of a mobile phone company, a microfinance bank and a private bank associated with a Bahrain-based financial group. Officials of the microfinance bank and the private bank have been nominated in the FIR on the basis of evidence collected, while several people who deposited money into the collection accounts told investigators under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure that the deposits were made to play online gambling games.