New Delhi: Cracking down on illicit flow of money, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted searches at premises of many forex dealers in Mumbai & Goa.
Under Section 37 of Foreign Exchange Management Act, the ED raided various locations of Full-Fledged Money Changers (FFMC) situated in Mumbai & Goa, namely office & residential premises of M/s Sete Mares Global Forex Pvt. Ltd. & M/s Nemichand Khemraj Forex Pvt. Ltd. & their directors.
These companies were engaged in the business of foreign currency exchange. These FFMC deposited huge amount of cash in the bank accounts on daily basis & remitted it through RTGS/NEFT to other FFMCs and collected Foreign currency in cash which aroused suspicion against these companies. It is suspected that these companies may be involved in trade based hawala & the FC collected by these companies were smuggled out of the country to settle transactions abroad.
Laptops, mobile phones impounded
The search conducted resulted in the seizure of Indian currency totalling to Rs. 44.37 Lakh & assorted foreign currencies amounting to Rs. 9.55 Lakh found to be in contravention of Foreign Exchange Management Act,1999 and Rules & Regulation made thereunder.
Further, incriminating documents, Laptops, mobile phones, etc containing information related to hawala transactions, smuggling of foreign currency were also recovered & seized during the search operation.
