Khanani brothers in Dhurandhar: The real money-laundering network behind the “shadow bankers”

Javed Khanani

The spy film Dhurandhar name-checks the “Khanani brothers” as covert financiers operating in the shadows. Behind the cinematic shorthand is a real-world story: Altaf Khanani and Muhammad Javed Khanani, Karachi-linked operators whose network was identified by US authorities as a major money-laundering organisation that moved illicit funds through informal channels across multiple countries.

What made the Khananis notorious was not traditional banking, but hawala-style value transfer and money-services operations that could shift large sums across borders with limited visibility to formal regulators. In November 2015, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated the “Altaf Khanani Money Laundering Organization” under an executive order targeting transnational criminal organisations, stating that it laundered funds for organised crime groups, drug trafficking organisations, and designated terrorist groups.

A second wave of designations followed in October 2016. US Treasury action that day named additional individuals and entities linked to the network, including Muhammad Javed Khanani, describing them as acting for or on behalf of the organisation. The associated listings and supporting documents show how wide the network’s footprint was, including multiple UAE-based trading and exchange-linked entities tied to the laundering architecture.

Altaf Khanani’s case also moved through the US justice system. Pakistani media reported that he was indicted on multiple money-laundering counts and later sentenced in the US, underscoring that the network was not merely a regional rumour but a target of sustained international enforcement.

Javed Khanani, the quieter figure in many accounts, died in Karachi in December 2016 after reportedly falling from a building. His death, coming amid heightened scrutiny of informal cash networks globally, added to the aura that now makes the “Khanani” name useful shorthand in popular culture.

As for the film’s “ISI’s shadow bankers” framing, it reflects a broader public narrative about how illicit finance can intersect with state and non-state power. The most solid, on-record thread is that international authorities treated the Khanani network as a large-scale illicit finance pipeline, and that is the core reality Dhurandhar dramatises.