Police recover ₹5 crore from two Hawala suspects

LUCKNOW :Two people suspected to be a part of ‘Hawala’ (illegal money transaction racket) were taken into custody after recovery of ₹5 crore unaccounted cash from their possession in Krishna Nagar area here on Wednesday afternoon.

Inspector of Krishna Nagar police station Yash Kant Singh said the two persons arrested were identified as Namit Srivastava, a resident of Madiaon and Devesh Srivastava, a resident of Rajajipuram. He said the duo was arrested during a vehicle checking drive and the cash was found in their SUV. He said the two accused are small time real estate agents and recovery of such large amount of cash from their possession had raised apprehension of illegal money transaction.

He said the recovered amount is in denominations of ₹500 currency notes. He said the duo had stated that the total amount was ₹5 core but the income tax officials would count it further. The inspector said the two accused so far had not been able to explain the source of the cash recovered from them and income tax officials were further quizzing them. He said the two accused had not revealed anything about their network and only stated that the cash was meant to be delivered to one Rakesh whom they do not know. He said an unknown person had asked them to deliver the amount to Rakesh after collecting it from another unknown person

He said initial probe hinted the two accused were part of illegal money transaction racket and were paid carriers. He said the duo told the unknown person had promised to pay a good commission for delivering the cash.HTC