The Railway Protection Force (RPF) of the central railway busted a hawala racket and recovered Rs 1 crore cash and jewellery worth more than Rs 9 lakh at Kalyan station, an official from the Central Railway said on Friday.
"The RPF's crime intelligence unit on May 25th seized Rs 1.1 crore cash and over 178 gm of gold worth Rs 9.14 lakh from five persons," added officials.
"While conducting preventive checks, RPF team apprehended five courier company employees, who were carrying hawala money and jewellery to be delivered in Mumbai," he said.
The senior divisional security commissioner had received information about the racket and passed on the same to the additional director of Pune circle, following which a joint seizure was done at the RPF post at Kalyan station. A case has been registered in this regard on May 26th after completion of the preliminary inquiry and further investigation is being carried out by the I-T department.
Earlier on Wednesday, the RPF team came to know that crores of rupees were being transported on the Devagiri Express from Hyderabad to Mumbai. Based on this information, RPF inspector (crime and intelligence branch ) Sunil Sharma, sub-inspector GS Edley along with senior railway officials and employees had set a trap at Kalyan railway station. RPF inspectors Prakash Yadav and Tukaram Andhale found five suspects travelling in three different bodies.
Later they were identified as Ganesh Mariba Bhagat, age-48 years resident of Amba Nagar, Nanded, Mayur Valdasbhai Kapadi Age-48 Years, Resident of Kutch of Bhuj District, Nandkumar Anandrao Valid age-40 years resident Vidya Nagar, Parbhani, Sanjay Vishnupant Manikkame Age-55 Years Resident of Nanded and Chandu Motiram Maken age-45 years resident of Jalna. All five were working for different courier companies as a delivery man.
During the search of the luggage of all five persons 3 boxes containing gold items worth Rs. 9 lakh 14 thousand cash worth Rs one crore were seized. All five delivery men were working for different courier companies of Nanded, Aurangabad, and Parbhani based and they were assigned to deliver the parcels to the office of the respective courier company at Masjid Bunder.
