I-T Dept busts Rs 100-crore hawala racket after raids in Chhattisgarh

New Delhi, June 24

The Income Tax Department on Thursday said it has unearthed an alleged hawala racket of over Rs 100 crore after it recently conducted raids in Chhattisgarh’s capital city of Raipur.

It said the searches were carried out on June 21 on four premises of an unidentified “hawala dealer” based in the city, after the department received “specific” actionable intelligence on his alleged illegal operations.

“The modus operandi involved not only giving accommodation entries of sale, purchase etc to people, but also transportation and end-use facilitation of unaccounted money.

“A number of digital devices in the form of a computer hard disc and pen drives having details of hawala transactions have been seized,” the CBDT said in a statement issued here.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), which frames policy for the tax department, added that the investigators also seized “unaccounted” cash of about Rs 6 crore during the raids.

The department said the digital devices are being analysed and quantification of the total amount involved is under progress.

“Preliminary estimates suggest that hawala transactions exceeding Rs 100 crore may be involved,” it said.

Hawala means out-of-book cash transactions and movement of funds by skipping banking channels. PTI