Mumbai’s hawala operators were used to send money to Goa for AAP’s poll campaign: ED

The ED has said that it has found that AAP was the major beneficiary of the proceeds of crime generated in the alleged Delhi liquor policy scam. Proceeds of the crime to the tune of approximately Rs 45 crore in cash were utilised in AAP’s election campaign in Goa for the Assembly elections 2021-22, the agency has claimed.

This money was allegedly part of the bribes received from the ‘South Group’ (which includes Bharat Rashtra Samithi MLC K Kavitha, the daughter of former Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, MP Magunta S Reddy, his son Raghav Magunta and Sarath Reddy) that was eyeing the Delhi liquor market.

According to the ED’s remand application, Dinesh Arora, a close associate of former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and now an approver in the case, in his statement to the agency on October 1, 2022, revealed that on the instructions of Vijay Nair, he coordinated a hawala transfer of Rs 31 crore along with Abhishek Boinpally, Rajesh Joshi and one Sudhir. Nair is a close aide of Kejriwal who allegedly received kickbacks to the tune of Rs 100 crore from the ‘South Group’.

While Boinpally is allegedly one of the key representatives of the ‘South Group’, Joshi is the owner of M/s Chariot Productions Media Pvt Ltd, and Sudhir is a close associate of Nair.

According to the ED, AAP had engaged Chariot Productions for its election campaign in Goa. The ED examined the vendors of the company engaged for outdoor campaigns and claimed to have found that many of the vendors were made “part cash part bill” payments by Chariot Productions.

One such vendor is M/s Grace Advertising whose employee Islam Qazi allegedly revealed to the ED that he raised the invoice of only a partial amount payable as the remaining part was paid to him in cash. Qazi got another vendor, M/s Sparks Entertainment engaged with M/s Chariot Productions and told Aaron Schubert D’Souza of Sparks Entertainment that the AAP payments are going to be part bill part cash, as per the ED.

Qazi allegedly revealed that he was given a Rs 6.29 lakh payment via hawala and he had collected this from a hawala operator in Mumbai’s Malad. These hawala operators or angadiyas from Mumbai were Anand Vyas and Anil Patel, who gave Rs 4.25 lakh cash and Rs 2.45 lakh cash respectively to Qazi. Similarly, D’Souza received Rs 5.5 lakh in cash out of the total payment of Rs 13.6 lakh, the ED’s remand application stated.

One Anil Patel, an employee of the Mumbai branch of angadiya operator R Kantilal, allegedly revealed before the ED that he delivered this money to Qazi on the instructions of Sagar Patel, another employee of Kantilal based in Goa.

The questioning of Sagar revealed that the income tax department had raided the Goa office of Kantilal angadiya in January 2022 and all the documents/notes/chits/slips had been seized by the I-T department in that search. Accordingly, the ED said, the data was retrieved from the I-T department and analysed. It allegedly revealed that approximately Rs 45 crore had been transferred through hawala to Goa.

This hawala trail of approximately Rs 45 crore was also investigated and substantiated by the Central Bureau of Investigation, the ED said.

Sagar allegedly revealed before the ED that he handed over huge cash amounts to Prince Kumar, Chanpreet Singh and Rajiv Mondkar in Goa. While Kumar is an employee at Chariot Productions, Singh worked at Chariot Productions on a regular as well as freelance basis and Mondkar was brought in to work on the election campaign in Goa.

As per the seized records of the I-T department, Kumar collected Rs 16,08 lakh from Sagar and Singh collected Rs 17.38 lakh over 18 occasions from Sagar in the period from August 2021 to January 2022. Mondkar allegedly collected Rs 27 crore on 16 occasions from Sagar in the period from June 2021 to December 2021.

Singh has a deep relationship and nexus with all the major conspirators and accused in the Delhi liquor scam i.e. Nair, Joshi and certain AAP leaders and the AAP, the ED submitted before the court.

How the money was sent to Goa

The ED probe has revealed that the money transferred to Goa came from four routes – approximately Rs 12 crore from Ashok Chandu Bhai of Asheel Corporation (angadiya); Rs 7.1 crore from Devang Solanki of K S Enterprise (angadiya); Rs 16 crore from Kirti Amba Lal (angadiya); Rs 7.5 crore from Neelkanth (angadiya); and Rs 2 crore from Ma Ambey (angadiya).

A further probe revealed that Chandu Bhai received funds of approximately Rs 12 crore from Rajesh Joshi and Damodar Prasad Sharma, an employee of Chariot Productions.

Devang Solanki has allegedly revealed before the ED that he had received Rs 7.1 crore from Arvind Singh. Singh, at the time of these transfers, was the production controller and commercial head in M/s India Ahead News Channel of Gautam Mootha, co-owned by Boinpally.

Kirti Amba Lal (angadiya), Neelkanth (angadiya) and Ma Ambey (angadiya) allegedly revealed before the ED that they had received this money from Chandan Kumar Tripathi, who then allegedly confirmed to the ED that a total amount of Rs 25.5 crore was given to him by Ashish Mathur and Tara Singh for onward transfer.

During the investigation, it was found that Mathur and Tara Singh are associates/employees of Vinod Chauhan, who was allegedly found to be in touch with the then private secretary of Kavitha, Ashok Kaushik. Kaushik’s call details allegedly revealed that he was in regular touch with other members of the ‘South Group’ like Boinpally, Arun Pillai and Sameer Mahendru of M/s lndo Spirits.

As per the ED, during the June 2021-August 2021 period, Kaushik collected two heavy bags containing cash from Dinesh Arora’s office on Boinpally’s directions and delivered them to Vinod Chauhan. On another occasion, he collected two such bags containing cash from an address near Todapur, Narayana, New Delhi and again delivered it to Chauhan, the ED’s remand application states.

What is the angadiya system?

The angadiya system is a parallel banking system that works on trust where traders send cash, generally from one state to another, through a person called an angadiya or a courier. The cash transactions are not regulated. In Mumbai, the angadiya system is mainly used in the jewellery business. It is the responsibility of the angadiya to transfer cash from one state to another, for which they charge a nominal fee.