Durg. The police of Durg district of Chhattisgarh have arrested three people from Gujarat on charges of hawala business in the capital Raipur and recovered Rs 80 lakh in cash along with a note counting machine from them. Police officials gave this information on Thursday. Police officials said that the three accused are allegedly part of a gang that sends money collected through online betting and gaming applications to other places.
Durg district Superintendent of Police Jitendra Shukla said that the police have arrested Shakti Singh Jaateja (26), Jayendra Singh Jaateja (21) and Akash Kumar Dave (31) from Shankar Nagar area of Raipur. All three are residents of Patan district of Gujarat. Shukla said that the arrest of hawala traders was helped after the arrest of an online betting and gaming app panel operator in Bhilai area of Durg last week.
He said that on June 28, Vinay Kumar Yadav, a resident of Ruabandha (Bhilai), was caught from Supela area when he was involved in online gaming and betting through satta apps in his car. The police officer said that when Yadav was questioned, he told the police that he had sent the money collected from betting to some people through hawala (illegal channel of sending money). According to Shukla, he also told about the office located in Shankar Nagar area of Raipur, where hawala business was going on. After this, Durg Police raided the office located in Raipur and caught all three.
The police officer said that the three accused revealed during interrogation that they were transacting the money collected from online betting through hawala from that office. The office was being operated by Dinesh Bhai Vyas of Ahmedabad. He said that Rs 80 lakh in cash, two mobile phones, three note counting machines etc. were recovered from the office. Shukla said, “Dinesh Bhai, who operated the hawala office, is absconding and is being searched for.”