Hyderabad: 2 crore hawala cash seized, Gujarat link under lens

HYDERABAD: A day after seizing 3.5 crore from six persons near a star hotel in lower Tank Bund, Task Force sleuths seized unaccounted money of 2 crore from four persons in what they believe was hawala money in the early hours of Wednesday.
Task force inspector Khaleel Pasha said that the west zone team intercepted four persons travelling in a car at Road No. 12 in Banjara Hills and seized 2 crore in various denominations ranging from 2,000 to 100.
Pasha said that the four persons belong to Gujarat. “They are working for Gujarat-based hawala operatives, Akash and Vishnu, who are owners of Patel Akash Kumar Kantilal and Company, a courier and parcel unit. They do not have any office and operate secretively,” he said.
Income tax department will conduct a probe and look into the origin of the unaccounted money, sources said.
The four men told police that they collected the cash from different people on the instructions of their employers to hand it over to one Vivek and his associates. Since they failed to provide details of the origin of the cash, police seized the amount under section 102 of CrPC and submitted it before the court. “The income tax department will be informed to conduct a further probe,” a police official said.
The four men have been identified as Ajit Thakar (39), office in-charge of Akash Kantilal courier and parcel service office, at Mithila Nagar, Banjara Hills, delivery executives Dilip Singh Chauhan (40) and Mahendra Singh (26) and car driver Parmar Sandeep Kumar (29).
Seizure of unaccounted cash in the city has seen a spike in the last two weeks as police have confiscated unaccounted money worth 10 crore, including the latest seizure.