Hawala scam: ED arrests Dubai-based businessman

A Dubai-based businessman from Surat was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for his alleged role in the multi-crore hawala scam.
Manish Shah was arrested yesterday and produced today in a special court for the cases of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) by ED, which sought his ten day remand.
Since Shah could not secure a lawyer for himself today, judge A P Bhojak will take up the matter tomorrow for hearing.
It is alleged that Shah owns a trading company in Dubai and received more than Rs 700 crore through various hawala channels from the two key accused -- Afroz Fatta and Madanlal Jain -- who were reportedly running a hawala racket of Rs 5,395 crores, according to ED advocate Sudhir Gupta.

It is also claimed that Shah was running his company in Dubai on behalf of Jain. Shah has allegedly transferred money from the companies floated by Fatta and Jain through various Dubai-based hawala operators, he said.
On July 19, ED had filed the chargesheet, in which the agency alleged the hawala scam to be of the tune of Rs 5,395 crore. ED had booked Fatta and Jain on the charges of sourcing and routing the Hawala cash to Surat through Angadias.

The ED chargesheet had said that the hawala cash were channelised by way of Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system through various entities to make foreign outward remittances. However, imports were not made against this.

As per the ED probe, Rs 3,929 crore were transferred through RTGS system. Fatta and his other aide Madanlal Jain is under ED's custody at present, he said.
The ED busted the multi crore hawala racket during their search operations in Surat-based offices of some diamond traders including Fatta and Jain in March 2014.