Illegal hawala money being pumped into GHMC polls?

Ranga Reddy: According to the Election Commission, the leaders who are contesting in the GHMC elections should not spend more than Rs 5 lakh for the election campaign. But, the leaders are spending more money in order to win the elections. So, they started using the technique called the "hawala" system to transfer money from one place to another.

Generally, these transactions are carried out by shady operators. They take the responsibility of transferring money from one place to another by charging 0.8 to 2 percent of commission. These transactions are not carried out by the banks because it is illegal. There will not be any written agreement for this process. The leaders who have deposited the money on the name of their Benami in the foreign countries are trying to bring back the money by using this method. And this changes according to the country and amount to be transferred. They charge high to store the money for a while.

Many safety measures have been taken by the operators to transfer money by the hawala system. The Transfer of money has been done using messaging, codes and WhatsApp. The money is being transferred through buses and trains. Usually these transactions have been carried during early hours or when the police are busy in their duties during the day. They will not transfer the money in the night times.They have been deceiving the officials by transferring money in packages of soaps and clothes. They are even transferring by carrying them in some ordinary bags so that the police would not have any doubt on them.

Recently, on November 18, the Hyderabad police had seized Rs 13 lakh from two Rajasthani people who were transferring money through the hawala method in Afzalgunj and Rs 21 lakh from Sayyad Ahmed in Sultan Bazaar.

On November 19, the task force police seized an amount of Rs 18.65 lakh in Mallepally and the Hyderabad police seized Rs 25.5 lakh from two people in Abids. On November 20, the Hyderabad police seized Rs 20 lakh from some people in Begum Bazaar. On November 21, Hyderabad Police Commissioner CP Anjani Kumar has announced that Rs 1.35 crore have been seized from various places till now.