National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Javed Iqbal said on Sunday they had concrete evidence that billions of rupees were laundered out of the country.

Criticising those who claimed that not even a penny was laundered out of the country, the NAB chairman said that billions of rupees were transferred abroad illegally. He said that money laundering was the major reason for the illegal infrastructure in the country. He said that people were fooled in the name of religion through Modarba, which later turned out to be a scam.

Shedding light on the performance of the NAB, Justice (Retd) Javed Iqbal said the accountability watchdog retrieved Rs714 billion from the looters after its creation and deposited back to the national exchequer.

He said that NAB was responsible for probing white-collar crimes and time was needed to collect evidence in such cases. “We have detected billions of rupees being transferred abroad through benami accounts in the name of falooda wala [ice cream seller] and chaabri wala [street vendor],” he said.