Hawala racketeers remain elusive in Kochi

KOCHI:  Though hawala transactions in the city continue to thrive, the authorities concerned are unable to trace those behind it. Agencies like Enforcement Directorate (ED) which handle hawala cases are toothless in  this regard.
“We have arrested several people in this regard but the probe discontinues  once they are handed over to Enforcement Directorate. After many cases met with the same fate, we carried out investigations and arrested a few but   even then we saw no action from the ED side,” a police official said.
However, a senior officer with the ED said: “We seldom receive any   information on the arrests made. Even the day-to-day activities of the ED office are moving at a snail’s pace owing to the dearth of personnel.”
The officer added that only a few cases of hawala have been reported in the state and most often the cases were of people held with unaccounted money and not hawala or illegal transaction.
“The arrest of a person with cash cannot be termed as hawala as it may be    just unaccounted money. It has been a practice among the police to term such cases as ‘hawala’. Hawala deals have more implications but most of the  so- called hawala cases are seizure of unaccounted money. It is up to the Income Tax Department to make a probe into such cases,” the officer said.
Meanwhile, a police official said hawala transactions are high in Kochi as the city is a hub of business activities. “The investigation in several cases has revealed that hawala rackets here are connected with mafia in countries like Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong. But, they operate very secretly that it is very hard to detect their activities,” the police official said.