Pune: The Unit IV of Crime Branch led by Police Inspector Rajnish Nirmal conducted several raids on Wednesday night and arrested nine suspected Hawala operators and seized nearly Rs 3.7 crore in cash. The raid was made in Kharadi to nab illegal sale of gutka which later on led to the Hawala ring.
Investigations revealed that the hawala ring was operating out of a building in Budhwar Peth and police had initially seized Rs 50 lakh during the raid. The raid was conducted at a building in front of Dagdusheth Ganapati temple on Shivaji Road in Budhwar Peth. In a joint operation carried out by Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone I) Priyanka Narnaware, Police Inspector (Unit IV) Rajnish Nirmal of the Crime Branch and assistant inspector Abhijit Chougule and their teams raided three blocks in the commercial building and another block inside Budhwar Peth.
Amongst the nine people arrested on Thursday, two are the biggest contributors towards the illegal happenings. Identity of the arrested gutkha distributor has been ascertained as Suresh Moolchand Agarwal (54), a resident of Kharadi. Interrogation of Agarwal led cops to one Navnath Kalbhor, to whom Agarwal used to regularly supply gutkha. The nine arrests in the raids on Wednesday night are in addition to the nine arrests made earlier in connection with gutkha racketeering that first led police to the hawala operators, taking the total number of arrests in the case to 18.
A police team of Unit IV of Crime Branch led by Inspector Rajnish Nirmal started digging deeper into the transactions made by these two distributors, it came to light that they had been transferring money to gutkha suppliers at other places through a hawala money remittance ring.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Bachchan Singh said, “Pune police on Wednesday night conducted joint raids at five locations in the city, and arrested nine persons. The probe has brought to light a link of hawala operators who were moving proceeds of gutkha racketeering”.