ED Busted Money Laundering Racket Related To Smuggling

ED busted money laundering racket related to smuggling of human hair, hair was sent from India to China via Myanmar.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday said that it has busted a hawala and money laundering racket linked to the smuggling of human hair.

This racket is used to illegally send human hair from India to China via Myanmar.

The ED has frozen 139 bank accounts recovered during the raids while confiscating cash, diaries, and digital devices worth Rs 1.20 crore.

The Federal Investigation Agency said it learned of the cross-border smuggling racket while it was investigating the funds’ trail of a Chinese mobile app for online betting.

According to a statement issued by the ED, raids were conducted at several places from Hyderabad to Aizawl and the border town of Champai in Mizoram on February 9 and 10 based on the case registered by the Hyderabad Police.

The ED said that human hair was sent to Myanmar through an illegal route via Mizoram, in return for which there was a huge income.

“A major part of the proceeds from child trafficking was paid as compensatory payments through illegal means to shops across the country involved in this racket,” the agency said.

Hyderabad Police in its case has stated that Nayla Family Exports Pvt Ltd used to smuggle hair using the Benami import-export codes of local companies.

The name of the director of Nayla is Mohd Ibrahim Patel. It states that there was a large-scale sale of hair from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to Guwahati and Kolkata.

From there, the child was sent to China via Myanmar and surprisingly, his payment was credited to a masked bank account in Mizoram.

According to the ED, shell companies include St. Mary’s Gem Industries (Champai), Sun Moon Human Hair (Champai), and Thari Enterprises (Aizawl).

Lukas Thangmangliana, a resident of the Champai district, is the main operator of this hawala syndicate.