Mumbai: The Mumbai crime branch has arrested a 70-year-old cloth merchant who operated as a hawala operator for fugitive gangster Ravi Pujari from south Mumbai on Tuesday night.
Sources in the Anti-Extortion Cell (AEC) of crime branch revealed that the accused identified as Ramesh Jivatram Israni alias Dilip Bhai had been sending funds to Pujari via Dubai. A team headed by AEC senior inspector Ajay Sawant and officers Raju Surve, Sanjeev Dhumal nabbed Israni from Sadashiv Market in Kalbadevi.
The investigators seized Rs 7.29 lakh cash that was to be sent outside India and five mobile phones from his possession. Israni’s name had come to fore following the arrest of a Kandivali-based developer and his aides who had sought help of Pujari in connection with a Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) project in Malad.
