ED busts international hawala racket in Jaipur

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) Thursday claimed to have busted a multi-crore international hawala racket being run from Rajasthan's capital Jaipur as it seized foreign and Indian currency amounting to Rs 1.30 crore and transaction documents in raids against alleged hawala operators here.

After concluding the search operations that were launched Wednesday, the central probe agency said in a statement that it was a global racket "running in crores" across south east Asia, Dubai and Europe.

"The searches were conducted in connection with illegal exchange of foreign currencies and international hawala activities by Ghanshyam Haldia, Manish Haldia and Ms Haldia Enterprises Pvt Ltd," the ED said in a statement.

The seized foreign currencies include USD 33,175, Euro 17,070, Chinese Yuan 4,850, Pound 1,790, Australian Dollar 1,930, Thai Baht 40, Saudi Arabia Riyal 1,000, Canadian Dollar 1,965, Japanese Yen 1,10,000, South African Rand 100 and Nepali Rupee 5,000, it said.

A total of Rs 87 lakh was also seized from the office of the alleged hawala operators and a bank locker has been frozen, the agency said.

"A number of incriminating electronic gadgets including hard drives, mobile phones and documents were also found and seized during the search operation. The incriminating paper slips, WhatsApp chats and many other documents have revealed that Ghanshyam Haldia and Manish Haldia are deeply involved in illegal forex exchange and international hawala activities.

"It has also come to light from these records that these individuals have dealt in international hawala racket running in crores," the ED said.

Hawala is a word used to identify the use of illegal means and skirting legal banking channels to route and launder huge amounts of money within the country as well as abroad.