In a major crackdown, the Ludhiana police on Thursday busted a hawala network being operated in different parts of the city and arrested 11 persons involved in the illegal money transfer racket. The police registered six cases against the suspects at various police stations. The hawala operators have links abroad and in other parts of the country and many of them are already under police lens.
Commissioner of Police (CP) Swapan Sharma said during the operation, the police recovered about Rs 80 lakh in Indian currency, Malaysian currency worth Rs 4,000 and currency notes of other countries from the possession of the suspects. Letterhead pads and a currency counting machine were also seized.
Sharma said some of the suspects had set up fake firms to facilitate hawala transactions and were issuing duplicate receipts. It has also come to light that the suspects were using Aadhaar cards of residents to carry out the illegal money transfers. The police are interrogating the nabbed suspects after obtaining their remand and will also question the victims whose Aadhaar cards were misused, to ascertain how their documents reached the miscreants.
Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime) Harshpreet Singh said the police registered six FIRs in this regard at Sahnewal, Police Division 3, Salem Tabri, Police Division 5, Model Town and Moti Nagar police stations against the suspects. Ram Murti of Nanak Nagar, Gagandeep Singh of Guru Nanak Nagar, Ajay Jaani of CMC chowk, Jaideep Thakur of Gujarat, Mukesh Kumar of Gujarat, Sunil Kumar of CMC chowk, Tarun Sharma of Giaspura, Jagdish Patel and Vanraj Sinha of Friends Colony, Darshal Lal Luthra of Model Town and Tarun Sirdhana of the Bhamian road area are booked by the police.
In one of the cases having major recovery, the Moti Nagar police arrested Tarun Sirdhana from Transport Nagar. The police recovered Rs 50.58 lakh along with currency notes of other countries. According to the police, the man was illegally transferring money for smugglers.
The Salem Tabri police arrested Ram Murti, a 63-year-old man, who had been running a hawala racket for the past two years. The police recovered Rs 1.10 lakh, a stamp pad and six slips from his possession.
Gagandeep, Ajay Jaani, Jaideep Thakur, Mukesh and Sunil Kumar were arrested after the police received information that they were preparing fake receipts and causing loss to the government exchequer by evading taxes and Rs 10 lakh was seized from them. During preliminary interrogation, the suspects admitted to running the hawala racket for the past few months and using Aadhaar cards of others in the transactions.
The police arrested Jagdish Patel and Vanraj Singh and seized Rs 15.72 lakh and a currency counting machine from them. ASI Mohan Lal said the duo was involved in the hawala racket through illegally set-up firms.
The Model Town police arrested Darshan Lal Luthra and recovered Malaysian currency worth Rs 4,000 along with Rs 2,51,600 in Indian currency. He was apprehended from a Forex Western Union shop. He had also allegedly prepared fake firms for illegal operations.
