The Central Zone Task Force busted a hawala money transfer racket, arrested five persons and seized ₹59 lakh from their possession. Police identified the accused as Pupalla Mahesh, 28, a driver and resident of Chitrapuri Colony; Guman Singh Rajpurohit, 63, a businessman and resident of Koti; Nepal Singh, 22, a salesman also from Koti; D.S. Rao, 28, a mason and resident of Manikonda and S. Avinash, 35, an employee of a private company and resident of Tarnaka. Police said one V. Anil Kumar wanted to send the seized cash to Jagtiyal by hawala. He told his driver P. Mahesh to hand over the money to Avinash and Singh, who were allegedly working as hawala facilitators. As Mahesh was making the delivery, the police in mufti caught them red-handed.

During investigation, police found out that Singh and his son Naresh were also working as hawala operators for the last one-and-a-half-years. They are said to have charged up to 0.8% of the hawala money as commission. Apart from cash, police also confiscated a car and six mobile phones from the possession of the accused.

The accused and the seized cash have been handed over to the Income Tax Department for further investigation.