KOCHI: Uthup Varghese, the proprietor of Al Zarafa Travels and Manpower Consultants who is prime accused in the nursing job scam, sent money abroad with the assistance of a Dubai-based ‘hawala’ racket.
Uthup allegedly transferred Rs 100 crore to Dubai with the help of Abdul Nazar K C of Kunnamangalam, Kozhikode, proprietor of Malabar Foreign Exchange company. Nazar, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) recently, provided his service on commission basis.
According to ED officials, last year, Uthup got acquainted with Suresh Babu, owner of Suresh Forex Company, another accused in the case. Suresh Babu and Abdul Nazar were known to each other. In November 2014, Suresh Babu contacted Abdul Nazar for transferring money through hawala channel, after being approached by Uthup.
Nazar agreed to the deal, and Uthup sent the first tranche of Rs 20 lakh to Suresh Babu’s house in Kottyam by his driver Saran in December 2014. Later, Nazar’s son-in-law Riyaz, who runs the Kochi branch of Malabar Foreign Exchange Company, collected the cash and handed over it to Nazar.
“Nazar had worked in Dubai for around three-and-half years, and returned to Kerala a few years ago to start foreign exchange business. After returning from Dubai, Nazar started doing hawala business in association with Dubai-based Rasheed, in the guise of doing foreign exchange business. The deal involving Uthup was also taken up after consulting Rasheed,” said ED officials.
Abdul Nazar received 5 paise for one dirham as commission for the transaction. Rasheed was given 200 dirhams for each transaction, while Suresh Babu charged 2 paise for every diraham.
“After December 2014, Srejith and Siju, employees of Al Zarafa, started taking daily collection from the office of Al Zarafa, which was later handed over to Nazar through Suresh and Riyas. Nazar would give the money to hawala operators Usman, Hamsa, Jaffar and Salam, based in Koduvally, Kozhikode and Vangara, who converted the cash into UAE dirhams.
The money ultimately reached Rasheed through the network. A total of Rs 100 crore was sent through hawala. Confirmation of each transaction was done through SMS.
Abdul Nazar was produced before the Ernakulam Principal Sessions Court, and was remanded. The CBI and the ED have found that Al Zarafa collected Rs 232 crore from nurses who were recruited to the Ministry of Health, Kuwait.
