I-T detects Rs 500 crore hawala racket in Madhya Pradesh

Bhopal: Income Tax (I-T) sleuths unearthed a hawala racket in Madhya Pradesh which channelised a whopping sum of around Rs 500 crore to different parts of the country post the demonetisation.

The alleged hawala operators opened bogus accounts in several banks in the state to deposit money and then transfer the funds to other accounts in different parts of the country, the investigation wing of I-T department here has found.

“We have completed a survey on bogus accounts in some banks in MP and have now initiated a probe to identify the real operators of these accounts,” R.K. Palliwal, principal director, investigation wing of principal commissioner of I-T, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, said on Saturday.

At least 50 such accounts have been detected in Katni branch of Axis Bank. A police probe into these accounts has revealed that some of the account holders belonged to BPL families. Even, some account holders are found to be beggars’ family members.

“The accounts have been opened in the name of suspected fictitious firms, in which these people have been cited as managing directors empowered to transact money. Transactions in these accounts ran into several hundred crores of rupees,” the Katni police, which constituted the special task force (SIT) to probe the matter, said.

The I-T sleuths said the money deposited in these bogus accounts is traced to Indore, Jabalpur, Bhopal and Gwalior.