KOCHI: The Covid-induced economic crisis has dried up revenue sources for many businesses in the state. But a huge amount of unaccounted and hawala money kept coming into the state by road with the excise department alone seizing over R 4.6 crore in 2020.
Officials say the seized amount is just five to ten per cent of the volume of hawala money that comes to the state from neighbouring states, mainly Karnataka. Throughout last year, the excise department seized R4.69 crore during routine and surprise vehicle checks conducted on the national and state highways right from Kasaragod to Thiruvananthapuram.
The data reveals that except for the period between February and June, the excise department had seized unaccounted money in all other months in the state with July 2020 being the month in which the highest seizure of R 2.87 crore was made.
After the first seizure of R 54 lakh black money was made in January, the second seizure was only in the month of July 2020.
“During the lockdown period, the hawala rackets didn’t took much risk because of heavy police presence on the roads and the high number of checkpoints put up to screen the passengers as part of Covid safety protocol,” said a senior excise officer. State Excise Commissioner S Aananthakrishnan said the seizures were all made by the excise teams during vehicle checks.
“As the department does not have the mandate to probe the seizures of hawala money, we transfer the cases to the police. The excise seizes the money only when the persons concerned fail to give proper evidence to prove its source,” he said.
An Enforcement Directorate (ED) officer said the post-lockdown time was one of the busiest periods for the money launderers as they saw a huge opportunity to pump unaccounted money into the market by financing small-time traders and people who were looking for funds to start a trade of their own.
“As the agencies took a soft stand on checks considering the crisis, the rackets routed the funds through middle agents to local vendors for all cash deals in purchasing different commodities. We are verifying certain details to track the cash flow,” the officer said.