Federal Investigation Agency

For the similarly named Mexican institution, see Federal Investigations Agency.

Federal Investigation Agency Urdu: وفاقی ادارۂ تحقیقات‎ FIA
Abbreviation	FIA'
The emblem of FIA
Motto	Urdu: صداقت دیانت‎
	Accuracy and Honesty
Agency overview
Formed	January 13, 1975 (1975-01-13) (38 years ago)
Preceding agency	Pakistan Special Police Establishment (1948)
Legal personality	Governmental: Government agency
Jurisdictional structure
Legal jurisdiction	Constitution of Pakistan
Governing body	Government of Pakistan
General nature	Law enforcement Civilian agency
Operational structure
Overviewed by	Islamabad, Pakistan
Agency executive	Saud Ahmed Mirza, PSP, TI, Director-General
Major Unitss	10 Crime wing National Central Bureau (NCB) (Interpol) FIA Academy Immigration Wing Technical Wing Legal Wing Anti Human Trafficking Wing Administration Wing Economic Crime Wing Complaint Center
Website
Official website

The Federal Investigation Agency (Urdu: وفاقی ادارۂ تحقیقات‎; reporting name: FIA), is an autonomous and constitutionally established federal institution tasked with investigative jurisdiction on undertaking operations against terrorism, federal crimes, fascism, smuggling as well as infringement and other specific crimes.

Codified under the Constitution in 1974, the institution act its functions under the Ministry of Interior (MoI). The FIA is similar in function to the American FBI and also undertakes international operations with the close cooperation and coordination with the Interpol. Headquartered in Islamabad, the agency has various branch and field offices located in all major cities throughout Pakistan.

More than 39 international offices, designated as "Immigration Wing" exist in Pakistan embassies and consulates-general worldwide.^[1] Its executive figure is appointed by the Prime Minister of Pakistan and as of current Saud Ahmed Mirza is currently tenuring as Director-General of the FIA.

Objectives and mission statement[edit]

The FIA's main goal and priority is to protect the nation's interests and defend of Pakistan, to uphold and enforce the criminal law and law enforcement in the country. Its current mission statement is regarded:

To achieve excellence in FIA by promoting culture of merit, providing continuous professional training, ensuring effective internal accountability, encouraging use of technology and having a meaningful feedback mechanism.

—Mission Statement of FIA, source^[2]

Priorities and departments[edit]

As of 2009, FIA has 10 active departments to lead criminal charges and investigation, with priorities:

• Counter-terrorism Wing (CTW)— Tasked to protect Pakistan from all kinds of terrorist attacks, including cyber, bioterrorism, chemical, electronic and nuclear terrorism (see counter-terrorism);^[3]
• Anti-Corruption Wing (ACW)— Tasked with undertaking investigations and combat all public corruption at all levels of command (see also NAB).^[4]
• Economic Crime Wing (ECW)— Mandate with to protect Pakistan from economic terrorism and protection of intellectual property rights of the people. (see also: Economic terrorism).^[5]
• Immigration Wing (IW) — Combat Human trafficking activities and measure against illegal immigration in Pakistan.^[6]
• Technical Wing (TW)— Tasked to make efforts to protect Pakistan against foreign intelligence operations and espionage (see counterintelligence and counterproliferation) as well as using the scientific assistance to resolve the high-technology crimes.^[7]
• Legal Branch (LB)— Responsible to provide legal guidance in all administrative and operational matters as well as protect civil rights.^[8]
• National Central Bureau (NCB)— Tasked with to combat transnational/national criminal organizations and enterprises (see organized crime) with the assistance from Interpol and FBI.^[9]
• Anti Trafficking Unit (ATU)— Task to combat major violent crimes, to ensure country wide coverage of human trafficking as well as preventing and protecting the victims of trafficking.^[10]

History[edit]

Background[edit]

In 1942, the British government established the Special Police Establishment (SPE) in British India during the midst of World War II.^[11] Originally the Police Establishment was tasked to take to take up investigation of corruption in Indian Civil Service (ICS), rampant in the Supplies and Procurement Department of the then British Raj.^[11] After the Indian partition and subsequent establishment of Pakistan, the SPE was equally divided between the governments of India, which formed the CBI, and Pakistan, which remained it as Pakistan Special Police Establishment (PSPE) in 1947.^[11] With the passage of time, the PSPE, apart from investigating the offenses of bribery and corruption against officials of federal government, was also given powers to investigate cases relating to the offenses under the following laws:-

• Official Secret Act, 1923
• Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947
• Passport Offenses Act, 1952
• Customs Act, 1959

Creation[edit]

After the 1971 war with India, the police reforms were carried out by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto after adopting recommendations from the report submitted by bureaucrat G. Ahmad in Prime Minister Secretariat, on March 7, 1972.^[11] The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) was created on January 13, 1975, after being codified in the Constitution with the passing of the FIA Act, 1974, by the State parliament.^[11] Initially, its first roles were to build efforts against the organized crimes, smuggling, human trafficking, immigration offenses and passport scandals.^[11]

National security and terrorism[edit]

Initially, its role was to conduct investigations on public corruption but the scope of FIA's investigation was increased to take actions against terrorism in 1980s.^[11] In 1990s, the FIA directed by Rehman Malik was involved in leading the investigations and actions against al-Qaeda operatives, KSM and Ramzi Yousef, assisted FBI to apprehend Ramzi in 1995,^[12] and KSM in 2002.^[11][13] In 2001, the FIA successfully investigated cases against Sultan Mahmood for his alleged bidding in nuclear terrorism, though the FIA cleared Mahmood of his charges in 2002.^[14]

In 2003, the role of counter-terrorism was assigned in the FIA, which led to a establishment of the Counter-Terrorism Wing (CTW).^[3] The CTW agents were provided extensive training and equipment handling by by the FBI under the Anti Terrorism Assistance Program (ATTP).^[3]

Anti-piracy efforts[edit]

In 2001 a petition was filed in the USA which disputed Pakistan's commitment to rooting out piracy within its national borders. In 2005, Pakistan was en route to having its US duty-free Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) being taken away from it. Thus in order to avert any further negative fallout, sections of the Copyright Ordinance 1962 were included in the FIA's schedule of offences. This legislation paved the way in 2005, under the direction of the federal interior ministry, to raid the country's largest video wholesale centre: The Rainbow Centre. Raiding the factories of the dealers that operated within the centre proved to be a highly successful entreprise, resulting in a reduction of 60% of sales of pirated video material. A spokesman from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), later confirmed, that many of the outlets had stopped selling pirated video goods and were now selling mobile phones, highlighting that the FIA's raids and the resultant legal action was a success.^[15]

Notable organizations[edit]

Special FIA Teams[edit]

In 2005, to deal with the growing indigenous terrorist problem, the FIA formed an elite Counter Terrorism unit named Special Investigation Group (SIG). The SIG comprises 80 Crime Scene investigators and 13 Specialists in IT, Explosives, Banking and Law. The US, the UK, Germany and the UNODC have provided extensive training and equipment to the SIG. The Federal Government notifies the SIG to investigate offences punishable under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 jointly with provincial police departments.^[16] Counter Terrorism Wing (CTW) In January 2011 SIG was expanded and a full separated wing was established to curb menace of terrorism in Pakistan ;Namely, Counter Terrorism Wing. currently CTW having experts in Forensics, Crime Scene Investigation, Explosive Analysis,Money Laundering.CTW also assist other law enforcement agencies in field of investigation. To date CTW has always been an integral part of HIGH PROFILE terrorist cases.

Controversies[edit]

FIA Scandals[edit]

It was also reported that 5 FIA personnel were investigated for their alleged role in human trafficking and most of them were dismissed from the service.^[17]

International access[edit]

Cooperation with Foreign counterparts[edit]

In 2006, the FIA resumed operational links with its Indian counterpart, the Central Bureau of Investigation, after a gap of 17 years.^[18][19]

FIA participates in the PISCES project which was initiated by the US Department of State, Terrorist Interdiction Program (TIP) in 1997, as a system to improve their watchlisting capabilities by providing a mainframe computer system to facilitate immigration processing. PISCES system has been installed at seven major airports of the country i.e. Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta, Multan and Faisalabad airports. The system has provision to accommodate information on suspects from all law enforcement agencies like Immigration, Police, Narcotics Control, Anti-smuggling, and Intelligence Services.^[20]

Organization[edit]

The FIA is organized into functional Wings and the office of the Director General. The Director General is assisted by three Additional Director Generals (Crime, Immigration and Administration) and eight directors for the effective monitoring and smooth functioning of the operations spread all over the country. Three of the directors are responsible for SIG, NCB and Legal Branch and the other five are placed in the strategic capitals of each state, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta and Islamabad Capital Territory. A deputy director assists with the functioning of the SIU.

The FIA training academy was first opened for use in 1976 specifically to train/equip new FIA recruits, though its scope was enhanced and now Police Officers, Army/Air Force Officers, NAB and members of other agencies participate in different courses which are conducted at the academy.

FIA also has a specialized wing for investigating Information & Communication Technology (ICT) related crimes. This wing is commonly known as National Response Centre for Cyber Crimes (NR3C) having web address www.nr3c.gov.pk. NR3C was established with the efforts of Mr. Ammar Jaffri, in 2007 and has the credit of arresting 12 hackers, saving millions of dollars to the government exchequer. This wing of FIA has state-of-the-art Digital Forensic Laboratories managed by highly qualified Forensic Experts and is specialized in Computer and Cell Phone Forensics, cyber/electronic crime investigation, Information System Audits and Research & Development. Officers of NR3C carryout training for Officers of Police and other Law Enforcement Agencies of Pakistan.

Organization Structure[edit]

• Immigration Wing (Additional DG)
  • PISCES (Director)
  • Immigration (Director)
  • AHS (Director)
    • ATU (Deputy Director)
    • Law (Director)
    • LO (Deputy Director)
• National Response Centre for Cyber Crimes *NR3C (Director), as directly under the Director General
• Crime wing (Additional DG)
  • Tech (Director)
    • Tech (Deputy Director)
    • Crime (Deputy Director)
  • Law (Director)
  • I&M (Director)
  • IPR (Director)
• Administration Wing (Additional DG)
  • FIA Academy
  • Admin
• SIG (Director)
  • Operations
  • Admin/Intel
• National Central Bureau (NCB) (Interpol) (Director)
• SIU (Deputy Director), as directly under the Director General
• Legal Branch
• Punjab (Director)
• Sindh (Director)
• Islamabad (Director)
• Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (Director)
• Balochistan (Director)

Structure[edit]

Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has its Headquarter in Islamabad. The Chief Presiding Officer of the Agency is called the Director General, same is appointed by Ministry of Interior. The Headquarter provide support to 4 Provincial offices, i-e Sindh, Punjab, KPK, Balochistan & Federal Capital Islamabad. The Provincial heads of Agency are called Directors. Further there are about (?) smaller offices known as Wings or Circles e.g. Crime, Corporate Crime, Banking Crime and Anti-Human Trafficking Circles at provincial level, they are headed by Additional and Deputy Directors, these are helped by Investigation officers(I.O) like Assistant Directors, Inspectors, Sub-Inspectors and Assistant Sub-Inspectors etc. for running of bureau business. The Wings are major segments of Agency known as Anti-Corruption or Crime Wing, Immigration Wing, Technical Wing, Legal Wing, Administration Wing and National Response Centre for Cyber Crimes (NR3C). Further there are branches working under the command of above-mentioned Wings viz Counter terrorism branch (SIG), Interpol branch, Legal branch, Crime branch, Economic crime branch, Intellectual Property Rights branch, Immigration branch, Anti-Human Smuggling branch, PISCES branch, Administration branch, Implementation and monitoring branch.

FIA Director Generals[edit]

The FIA is headed by a Director-General (DG), appointed by the federal government, generally a very senior Police Officer of BPS 21/22, based at the Headquarters in Islamabad. The current FIA Director General is Muhammad Anwar Virk of the Police Service of Pakistan who was appointed in July, 2012, succeeding the former DG Fayyaz Ahmed Leghari.

Lahore Bombings (2008)[edit]

The FIA office in Lahore was targeted during the Lahore twin suicide bombings. The building was severely damaged during the suicidal attack. Geo News later reported that "The building also housed the offices of a special US-trained unit created to counter terrorism" suggesting a motive.^[21]

Notable people[edit]

• Mr. Rehman Malik, Minister Interior
• Mr. Tariq Pervez, Ex DG FIA
• Mr. Tariq Khosa, Ex DG FIA
• Mr. Muhammad Anwar Virk, PSP, PPM

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• FIA's official website, Government of Pakistan