Hyderabad: Just a torn Rs 10 note was used to authenticate a transaction of about Rs 1 crore by the hawala operators, who were arrested on Friday. The two human couriers working for Gujarat-based hawala operators were carrying the torn Rs 10 note to identify the authentic receivers of the cash in the city.
The couriers hailing from Gujarat were arrested by the Mahankali police with Rs 99,36,500 unaccounted cash in their possession on Friday. The duo was given a commission for every successful hawala transaction at various places across the country.
Bhavesh Patel, 36, of Kadi village and Suresh Kumar Dayabai Patel, 47, of Sankalpur village in Gujarat were caught on Thursday at about 6 pm when they tried to escape on seeing the Mahankali police personnel.
The duo was chased and intercepted. When the team checked the two bags they were carrying, huge numbers of currency notes were found stuffed inside.
Further, they were found to be the human-couriers used to deliver the cash as directed by two persons Ankit Patel and Amit N. Mehta of Gujarat.
Hyderabad city police commissioner Anjani Kumar said, “The duo was carrying the cash to deliver to unidentified persons in the city based on the directions provided by their ‘bosses’, according to what the accused claimed. They revealed the names of their bosses as Ankit and Amit, whose names had earlier surfaced during the probe by the city police in similar cases.”
Accused Bhavesh and Suresh were carrying a Rs 10 note to authenticate the receivers of the hawala cash. This has been a common mode of identification and authentication of the receivers by the couriers, said the commissioner. Answering a query, commissioner Anjani Kumar said, “So far we have not identified any link that the money was being delivered to any politically-affiliated persons. Further probe on the origin and delivery of cash will be done by the Income Tax officials.”
Another police official said, “Three months ago, Bhavesh and Suresh delivered the cash in the city. This is their second operation. They are given a torn Rs 10 note and directed to travel to various places in the city to deliver the cash. The couriers will authenticate the receivers of the hawala cash with the other half of the torn note and look if the piece of note has a code matching with the piece in their possession.”
