NEW DELHI: Hawala transactions in India have been redefined. It’s not done any more in the dingy streets of old city scrap or spice markets of commercial towns or cities. Neither are pieces of torn notes exchanged for cash bundles handed over, after being weighed over balances.
Sleeper cells, terror operators, handlers and propagators of terrorist ideologies are firming up their finances in India by tapping overseas Indian workers and technicians, who are working in Middles-east, for funds.
During recent operations and pre-op intel collection the Intelligence Bureau and NIA sleuths, while working on leads to crackdown on PFI and other radical groups on more than 250 locations in over 15 states, have stumbled upon startling trends about how funds used for illegitimate activities in the activities are coming into India.
The intel collectors have come across several instances, where overseas funds, primarily from Middle-east, are being pumped into India for terror and anti-national activities though seemingly benign channels which are usually used to send in legitimate money by overseas Indian workers, primarily from middle east, back to their homes here.
In a recent operation on PFI by the NIA last week at three locations in Kerala’s Malappuram district sleuth found that “members were involved in raising funds from India and abroad through banking channels, hawala, donations etc., which were used for terror and anti-national activities.”
“The funds are being used for committing or planning terrorist acts in various parts of India, including in south and north India,” the NIA said, adding finances are also being firmed up to support “camps for terror training and ensuring adequate resource availability for future activities,” the NIA official confirmed.
According to intel sources, fund peddlers who are operating at transnational levels, with India as their designated target zone, are getting hold of Indians working abroad who send monthly regularly back home. “The operators identify these workers and hand them over “substantial amounts” which they transfer to their family accounts in India along with their monthly earnings which they send back home as savings,” said an officer.
These “substantial amounts” which are excess are then collected by agents operating here on behalf of the sleeper cells, operators and “mission runners” from the families. “There is a commission for this, which takes care of the legitimacy and is also sometimes remunerative,” the officer said. While the funds come in through overseas workers, the money here is picked up by collectors using verbal codes and phrases.
These cell operators and handlers work in tandem with international syndicates like the ones run by Dawood and Shakeel, an NIA official said. In a recent chargesheet the agency cited that in April this year, Rs 25 lakh were sent by Shakeel from Pakistan to Mumbai via hawala operators based in Dubai, Surat and Malad.
According to an intel official, the ground work was done during the total lock down where the operators using the local social intel network identified potential overseas workers. “They had made deep social inroads and once things opened up and people moved out on overseas assignments it was easy for them to identify and track,” an official working in the related segment said.
Emigration clearances are required from the Indian government for skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers as well as certain professionals. Around 189,000 emigration clearances were issued for the Gulf from January to July this year alone, as the figure stood at around 94000 due to COVID lockdowns according to MEA reports. It started going up after partial opening in 2021 and the annual figure stood at 132700.