Delhi Police raided a hotel in central Delhi’s Karol Bagh area on Tuesday night and recovered Rs3.25 crore in demonetised notes from five persons who were allegedly involved in collecting black money from various agents in Delhi through hawala and delivering it to Mumbai for converting it as ‘white money’. The seized money was later handed over to Income-Tax Department for further investigations.
The five accused have been identified as Ansari Abuzar, Fazal Khan, Ansari Affan, ladu Ram and Mahaveer Singh. Affan is the boss of the other four persons who hired local trusted youths, preferably from their neighborhood community to operate in a clandestine manner. He has close acquaintances with the money exchangers and agents active in Delhi.
“A tip-off was received by the Crime Branch on Tuesday evening about some Mumbai and Rajasthan-based people making regular visits to the capital for the purpose of conversion of black money into white with the help of money exchangers in Karol Bagh”, said Ravindra Yadav, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime).
He added that these people had hoarded pile of cash illegally through hawala and were planning to carry it to Mumbai. It has also been found that these people had made three trips between Delhi and Mumbai between November and December, said another officer.
They used to take cash from Delhi in check-in baggage and wrap it in a special way so that they weren’t detected. “After collecting the cash, they used to make bundles of the notes by wrapping them in newspapers by using double side tapes and adhesives. They used to cover these bundles with black clothes and place spiral telephone and internet connecting cables near each bundle to deceive baggage scanning machines installed at the railway stations or airports,” said Yadav.
In case they were asked about the contents of the baggage, they would say that they are taking a landline phone. “They used to carry a manual pocket balance to weigh the bags so that they didn’t exceed the permissible limits for carrying bag and baggage during flight journey. After collecting cash, they used to depart hurriedly for Mumbai,” added Yadav.
These persons were staying in Hotel Taksh Inn situated at Karol Bagh, whose owner is also a money exchanger and runs his business in the name of Guru Forex in a shop, said Yadav.
Even though his direct involvement hasn’t emerged in this matter, the I-T department is probing that angle, sources said.
A team was constituted under the supervision of DCP Rajesh Deo and the information was shared with the Income-Tax Department and a team of Income-Tax officials led by Deputy Director Abhishek Anand was roped in for the operations, said the officer.
A search warrant was procured by the Income-Tax Department and the premises were raided around 8.30 pm on Tuesday.
“Five persons staying in room numbers 106, 202 and 206 were detained and four suitcases and one cardboard carton box containing demonetised currency notes were recovered and seized by Income-Tax officials. On counting, they were found to be having a value of Rs3.25 crore,” said Yadav.
Affan, Khan and Abuzar are residents of Mumbai while Ram and Singh belong to Rajasthan. Affan was paid money on the basis of the number of trips he made while the other four were paid Rs2,000 per day.
“It has been revealed that the gang is operated by Mumbai-based hawala operators lalit Bhai and Bholu Bhai who collect black money from various people of Maharashtra and from other States of the country and later after deducting their commission, they return the money in white.
“In Delhi, they collect cash from various hawala operators including Paras, Rahul and Vinod and get it converted into white,” said the official. He said that the I-T department and Enforcement Directorate have been informed.