ED seizes Rs 9.28 cr from hawala dealer’s office in CP

In the biggest cash seizure in its history, Enforcement Directorate (ED) sleuths have recovered R9.28 crore from the office of an alleged hawala dealer in Connaught Place in the Capital.

In the biggest cash seizure in its history, Enforcement Directorate (ED) sleuths have recovered Rs 9.28 crore from the office of an alleged hawala dealer in Connaught Place in the Capital.

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The recovery has been made under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (Fema).

The cash was recovered from the office of Pankaj Kapur, who runs a private vault by the name of PP Vaults in Connaught Place. According to ED sources, apart from R9.28 crore in cash, laptops, mobile phones and lot of incriminating documents have also been seized.

The ED press note alleged that Kapur was running a hawala racket in the garb of importing diamonds from Dubai. The cash was collected in India from various parties against invoices of diamond sale. Then money was transferred through normal banking channels. The sleuths have also identified two bank accounts — one in Dubai and one in UK.

The ED suspects alleged hawala transfer of more than

Rs 1,000 crore this year only. According to sources, the illegal money transfer figures for last year could be around Rs 1,800 crore.

Sources added that the officials are yet to open lockers of PP Vault. There are around 2,200 lockers in the vault. The ED suspects that the vault facility was being misused. They have informed the Reserve Bank of India about it.