Mumbai: A syndicate of hawala operators remitting funds overseas by cryptocurrency exchanges and digital tokens in the Delhi National Capital Region (NCR) and Mumbai were searched by the Income Tax (IT) Department on Friday for alleged tax evasion.
The hawala operators were suspected to be laundering unaccounted funds using crypto exchanges to transfer payments overseas in the grab of media advertisement.
Black money laundering
“The anonymity and decentralisation offered by these technologies has made crypto currencies attractive for criminal enterprises looking to evade the traditional banking system and launder black money. Hawala channel transfers funds outside India and crypto allows moving unaccounted transactions evading taxes across borders,” explained a senior IT official.
The taxmen suspect an estimated Rs30,000 crore has been transferred out of India by hawala operators and crypto exchanges.
Recently, IT officials had arrested a hawala operator transferring funds to crypto exchange in Singapore to convert black money into cryptocurrencies to be laundered into legitimate businesses. The tax investigation had led to seizures of over Rs100 crore crypto assets.
