I-T sleuths unearth Rs 20,000-cr hawala racket

The Income Tax Department on Monday claimed to have busted a nexus of hawala operators who were running a money laundering racket in the national capital estimated to be worth Rs 20,000 crore.

Official sources in the department said a "series of" raids and surveys were conducted by sleuths of the Delhi investigation unit of the IT Department over the last few weeks in different business areas of old Delhi.

These operations led to unearthing of illegal financial activities by three groups of operators, a senior official said.

A survey was conducted on one such group in the Naya Bazar area, that led to the detection of bogus billing of about Rs 18,000 crore. This group had floated a dozen bogus entities for providing fake bills, the official said.

The identities of the accused were not disclosed by the department.

In the second case, a "highly organised" money laundering racket has been unearthed where current transactions in well-known shares were fraudulently camouflaged as being sales of old shares held for years, the official said.