Hyderabad: In a major haul, sleuths of west and north zone Task Force teams conducted simultaneous raids and busted an illegal hawala racket.

The raids were carried on some premises at Road No. 36 of Jubilee Hills, Liberty of Saifabad, YMCA Clock Tower in Secunderabad and Ranugunj.





Officials apprehended eight persons and seized net cash of Rs 3,13,44,000, 1,800 grams of gold biscuits worth Rs 60 lakh and 11 mobile phones from their possession.

In the first raid, the west zone Task Force teams arrested A. Prakash, 38, R. Kiran Goud, 38, and S.V. Krishnam Raju, 38, who collected about `2.12 crore from T. Raja Ramesh, owner of Haridwar Infrastructure, in Road No. 10, Banjara Hills. They planned to transport the cash in two cars (AP09 BR 4567 and TS15 ED 1617) to Sangareddy in order to distribute amo-ng the voters allegedly in favour of Turupu Jayaprakash Reddy alias Jaggareddy, the Congress candidate. The raid was carried out at Road No. 36, Jubilee Hills, said DCP, Commissioner’s Task Force, P. Radhakrishna Rao.

“In the second raid, K.Ganesh Goud who collected `45 lakh from one Sumith Agarwal at Saifabad, as per the instructions of his employer was arrested. He was to have handed over the money to one Dass Robert,” Mr Rao said. The west zone Task Force team apprehended Goud and seized the cash from him.

In another incident, the north zone Task Force arrested two persons identified as Sanjay Kumar Jha and D. Yadagiri who were trying to deliver `50 lakh cash and 1,800 grams of gold biscuits to one Mahender Agarwal from Mayur Ram Gulabani of Legend Pearls at Pathargatti, Charminar.

Police said Gulabani used to deliver money to needy customers on commission of up to 10 per cent under the guise of pearls business.

The north zone team also conducted a raid at Trison Impex, Ispat Bhavan, Ranigunj, and found `6.53 lakh that was to be allegedly delivered as hawala to a customer and arrested one Naresh Angara.