HYDERABAD: In an indication of the alarming rise of hawala operations in the city, police have arrested 10 hawala organisers and seized Rs 5.325 crore in the last 10 days.
West Zone Task Force and Jubilee Hills police arrested three hawala organisers near Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan School, Jubilee Hills, early on Sunday and seized a bag containing Rs 2.5 crore cash.
“The accused K. Ramu, Sudheer Kumar and Ashok Singh were nabbed by our patrolling party when they were moving around on a bike under suspicious circumstances,” said B. Srinivas, detective inspector of Jubilee Hills. They confessed that they were transporting the hawala amount to some businessmen in the area.
Police are looking for the main hawala operators and their ‘customers’ who are absconding. Ramu is a resident of KPHB while Ashok and Sudheer stay in Begum Bazar.
In a separate case, Chandrayangutta police took into custody four hawala organisers, including two from Uttar Pradesh. The police seized Rs 79.25 lakh cash and two cars from their possession.
The accused were exchanging bags containing the cash when a police patrol caught them red-handed on the Mahaubnagar junction on Saturday night.
The arrested were scrap dealers Salman Mallik and his uncle Imran Mallik, natives of UP, who are residing in Attapur, Thamma Venkateswar Reddy of NBT Nagar and E. Shekar, a resident of L B Nagar, said K.N. Prasad Varma, Chandrayangutta inspector.
Police said that Jayapal Reddy, manager of Sushi Inframine, had instructed his employees Venkateswar Reddy and Shekar to collect the hawala amount from the Maliks. Police said Salman Mallik runs HB Enterprises, a scrap unit, in Aramghar along with his uncle Imran Mallik and they were involved in hawala. Police are searching for Jaipal Reddy, manager of Sushi Inframine.
Incidentally, on Sepember 30, the West Zone Task Force had raided the apartment of one Shoeb Malik in Shantinagar and seized Rs 1.24 crore. Shoeb had told the police that he is a scrap dealer and a native of UP.
On October 6, Jubilee Hills police had arrested K. Karthik and L. Lakshminarayana when they were transporting Rs 50 lakh on a bike near their house in Venkatagiri.
