Hawala racket busted: Ludhiana cop, Haryana dry fruit trader among 5 held
The Amritsar City Police Commissionerate has busted a hawala racket being operated by a US-based drug peddler and gangster through a Haryana dry fruit trader who was among the five persons, including a Ludhiana cop, arrested in this connection.
The Commissionerate also confiscated Rs 46.91 lakh of hawala money from their possession.
Those arrested included Rajanjot Singh, alias Rajan, of Kamla Avenue on the Fatehgarh Churian road, Gurpreet Singh, alias Gora, of Mahawa border village, Harmeet Singh of the Sadar quarters in Amritsar, Navjot Singh of Max City on the Ram Tirath road, a constable posted in Ludhiana and Anil Saini, a dry fruit trader in Bhiwani, Haryana.
Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said the racket was busted following investigations into the seizure of 1kg of heroin from an alleged smuggler Satnam Singh 10 days ago. He said as per the probe, the accused were transferring drug money through a hawala network in exchange for heroin consignments being supplied from Pakistan via drones.
“Satnam (26), a resident of Chhidan village, falling under the Lopoke police station, was arrested on April 9 with 1 kg of heroin. Upon his disclosure, the police arrested Rajanjot Singh, Gurpreet Singh and Anil Saini who was running the hawala racket under the garb of dry fruit trade,” said Bhullar. Later following disclosures of Gurpreet Singh, the police nabbed Navjot Singh and Harmit Singh.
He said the accused used to exchange money by taking photos of Rs 10 and Rs 20 currency note numbers and verified the same through social media apps.
“During interrogation of Anil Saini, Navjot Singh and Harmit Singh, it was revealed that they were in contact with US-based drug smuggler Joban Kaler and gangster Gopi Chougawan who were behind the entire cartel,” the Police Commissioner said, adding that with this, the city police had dismantled the nexus between narcotics and hawala money.
He said further investigations were on to ascertain the total quantity of narcotics purchased by the accused and to expose the complete network of suppliers, dealers and buyers.
Punjab