The Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) of the Pune Customs Department has uncovered a hawala racket involving the dollar, valued at approximately Rs 3.47 crore, and apprehended two persons in the case, an officer said on Tuesday.
According to news agency PTI, the Pune Customs Department, in a press release issued on Tuesday, stated that the accused have been identified as 41-year-old Khushbu Agarwal, a travel agent, and Mumbai-based Mohd Aamir, who had supplied the foreign currency.
Authorities have seized foreign currency of different countries from a forex firm in Mumbai.
The action followed specific information on a huge quantity of foreign currency concealed between the pages of notebooks and placed inside two trolley bags smuggled out of India by a person using unsuspecting three passengers from Dubai to the city by a Spice Jet flight on February 17, PTI reported.
The AIU officers conducted searches of the baggage as well as of the passengers and recovered USD 400,100, equivalent to approximately Rs 3.47 crore from the bags, as per the release.
Their interrogation revealed that they were students, while the bags belonged to Agarwal.
“Agarwal had given the travel package to these three students for their Dubai Trip. At the last minute before departure from Pune, she handed over two bags to students on the pretext that they contained her office documents urgently required at her Dubai office. The students accepted these bags and departed from Pune,” the release said.
AIU officers at Pune Airport detained Agarwal and recorded her statements under the Customs Act.
After she confessed to owning the said foreign currency, the officers, based on further questioning, sent a search team to a Forex firm in Mumbai and apprehended Aamir, who had supplied the dollars, the Customs Department said.
During the search of the said firm, foreign currencies of various countries were also found on the premises.
AIU and Customs officers conducted searches at 10 places in Pune, Ahmedabad, and Mumbai in the case, PTI reported.
The two accused were sent to judicial custody.
Mumbai Customs seize drugs worth Rs 10.22 crore at airport
The Mumbai Customs on Wednesday said that the officials at Mumbai airport seized drugs worth Rs 10.22 crore.
According to the customs department, the officials at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMI) in Mumbai made a significant drug seizure and they confiscated 1.022 kilograms of suspected cocaine and Methaqualone, with an estimated market value of approximately Rs 10.22 crore.
On February 16, 2025, a passenger arriving from Entebbe in Uganda, on Ugandan Airlines flight UR 430 was intercepted by the officials and during questioning, the passenger showed signs of nervousness and admitted to swallowing capsules containing a white, crumbled substance believed to be a narcotics, the customs department said.
It said that the customs officials, with the permission of the judicial magistrate, took the passenger for medical supervision to recover the ingested capsules. Over the next three days, the passenger expelled a total of 84 capsules, weighing 1.022 kilograms in total.
“The substance was confirmed to be suspected cocaine and Methaqualone,” said an official.
The officials said that the passenger was arrested under the provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985 and further investigations were underway.
(With PTI inputs)
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