The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence on Tuesday claimed to have busted an international hawala racket after arresting two people based on a tip-off, including a Jet Airways hostess who was allegedly trying to smuggle out foreign currency worth over Rs 3 crore.
The DRI officials intercepted the Jet Airways flight attendant when she had boarded a plane that was scheduled to take off for Hong Kong on Tuesday, the agency said in a statement.
During the examination of her checked in and hand baggage, USD 4,80,200 wrapped in aluminium foil with a market value of Rs 3.25 crore was recovered.
During interrogation, it came to light that the woman was part of a major international hawala syndicate, and has carried foreign currencies several times for a Delhi-based hawala operator, who was also arrested, it said.
The employee was identified as Deveshi Kulshrestha, and the alleged hawala operator as Amit Malhotra, a resident of Vivek Vihar area in Delhi, a senior DRI official said.
He said Malhotra used crew members for smuggling foreign currency.
The official claimed that Malhotra would collect money from some bullion dealers in Delhi and send it to select foreign destinations using a flight attendant.
According to an Indian Express report, Malhotra met Kulshreshtha on a New Delhi-Hong Kong flight six months ago. The two spoke for two-three minutes and later met at the IGI airport in New Delhi to strike a deal.
Speaking to The Indian Express, a source said:
He struck a deal with her and told her he would pay her Rs 1 for every dollar she helped launder.
However, she was being paid lesser than what Malhotra had promised, a fact that she reportedly discovered only after she was arrested.
The smuggled money was being used for purchasing gold abroad, and was later sent to India illegally.
Both Kulshrestha and Malhotra were produced before a designated court which remanded them to two days of judicial custody. They will be produced before a Metropolitan Magistrate on 11 January.
The DRI has recovered Rs 3.3 lakh in cash, and foreign currencies of different countries worth USD 2,500, besides several incriminating materials from Malhotra, a DRI official said. A separate investigation is on to probe if Malhotra was involved in converting black money to white for businessmen in the city.
(With inputs from the Indian Express and PTI.)
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