Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Gangsters target hawala couriers

Thiruvananthapuram: Criminal gangs in the city seemed to be finding easy targets in couriers carrying hawala money.

On December 31, armed gangsters ambushed the suspected agent of one such illegal and largely secretive money transfer network on the National Highway bypass at Thiruvallam and robbed him of Rs.20 lakh.

The police said the victim was the agent of a Beemapally-based hawala kingpin. They were yet to identify the gangsters who seemed to have had prior information about the agent’s movement. The courier had failed to identify any of those who waylaid him. He was carrying the money to a fellow agent in Thengapattinam in neighbouring Tamil Nadu.

The police said an insider in the hawala network, perhaps the agent himself, could have helped the robbers. It was not uncommon for gangsters to recruit informants inside hawala networks to gain intelligence on the movement of couriers carrying currency bundles.

Sources said several hawala networks operated out of Vallakadavu, Beemapally, Shanghumugham, Chala and Kovalam with links to suspected hubs in Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Malappuram. In October, the Poonthura police had arrested a suspected hawala agent with a large sum of unaccounted money.

A section of Gulf-based Malayalis routinely used hawala networks to send money to their relatives in Kerala. Law enforcers said the same networks could also be used by money launderers, drug dealers, smugglers and divisive organisations. However, they seemed to have scarce information on those who operated such networks.

The police sources said certain jewellery shop owners used foreign exchange remittances made by non-resident Malayalis to hawala agents in the Gulf for making purchases in overseas markets.

The traders in turn compensated hawala agents in the city, thus enabling the network operators to easily transfer (without actual physical or electronic transfer of cash and by sidestepping financial institutions) the remittances of their Malayali clients in the Gulf to Kerala.

Electronic goods, gemstones and gold purchased with hawala money from foreign markets are also smuggled into the city through air and seaports to compensate local hawala agents.

Sources said that only a tiny fraction of the hawala agents who get robbed informed the police. Instead they paid goondas to get even with the robbers, often employed by their competitors in the hawala business.

In 2007, the Malappuram police had arrested five gangs which specialised in ambushing hawala couriers for their currency parcels. Their operations had caused a public outcry in North Kerala after it resulted in two murders and several highway robberies during the November 2006-July 2007 period.

An official said hawala operations in the city could result in similar violent crimes if unchecked.

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