3 remanded for multi-crore hawala deals

December 1: Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of the 47th court, C L Thool, today remanded three persons involved in multi-crore h...

December 1: Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of the 47th court, C L Thool, today remanded three persons involved in multi-crore havala transactions to judicial custody. They have been found to have violated provisions of Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA).

Chandumal Assandas Mayank alias Kaka (71), Hotchand Daulatram Taurani (58), and Ravi Prakash Arora (29) will be kept in judicial custody till December 15, 1999. A complaint was lodged in this regard by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) after it received information that the trio was involved in the havala business. Mayank’s residence was searched by the ED on November 29, 1999, under section 37 of FERA. An amount of Rs 10,50,000 was recovered from Mayank’s residence. Certain incriminating documents were also recovered from him. This search led to the search of Mayank’s two other accomplices viz, Taurani and Arora. Rs 6,70,000 and Rs 1,35,000 were recovered from Taurani and Arora respectively.

Besides the amounts recovered from the trio the ED officials were able to trace Rs 8,50,000 along with certain relevant documents from the residential premises of Rakesh Arora, an associate of the third accused in the case.

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The ED has said that Mayank admitted to have been in the havala business since March 1998. He told the ED that he used to receive payments from and make payments to several persons in Mumbai. He confessed before the ED that he used to execute the transactions on the instructions of a Dubai-based person by the name of Baliram. It is on the instructions of Baliram that Mayank received an amount of 7.6 crore from Taurani and Rs 28.8 lakhs from Arora. The amount was distributed to various persons in Mumbai.

It was concluded that since Mayank, in all, received and made payments of Rs 8.96 crore on the instructions of Baliram, he has violated the provision of FERA. It was also found that Taurani had arranged for foreign exchange for persons residing abroad through another Dubai resident called Mannu.