“‘Politicians, businessmen and film stars route black money through hawala to ensure that the money is not taxed. Most hawala operators work with the blessings of the ISI. The spy agency then uses the information to blackmail Indian politicians each time probe agencies try to unearth details of such deals,’ said the IB official.” – Vicky Nanjappa
Pakistan’s spy agency Inter Services Intelligence has been blackmailing some prominent politicians in India over their involvement in shady money laundering deals, according to reports by security agencies.
Shocking as this piece of information may seem, Indian intelligence agencies have, for some time, been aware of the hold the ISI has on our political leaders.
These politicians, on the prodding of the spy agency, often hamper investigations into terror strikes orchestrated by the latter, rue security agencies.
Colonel R S N Singh, a former official of the Research and Analysis Wing, has observed that there are enough reasons to believe that several politicians in India are being blackmailed by the ISI and Lashkar-e-Tayiba founder Hafiz Saeed because of their hawala links.
After the Bombay (Mumbai) serial blasts in 1993, the Union home ministry had made a list of politicians who had allegedly sought the help of terrorists and underworld dons to carry out their hawala transactions, according to a source in the ministry.
A report by the home ministry had stated that Choksi, a racketeer involved in the high-profile Jain hawala case, had helped some politicians in Maharashtra transfer Rs 72 crore, said the source.
But the scourge of hawala-tainted money is not limited only to politicians from Maharashtra.
Recent intelligence inputs suggest that some politicians in Kerala have been stashing away a large amount of money through hawala.
“The shady operatives who help politicians stash away their ill-gotten wealth are the same ones who raise funds for terror attacks in India. Often, they work under the control of the ISI and the agency indirectly accrues information about corrupt politicians in India to further its own devious agenda,” said an official of the Intelligence Bureau.
“I will not be surprised if large sums of money belonging to politicians change hands and anti-social elements get a whiff of it,” said C D Sahay, former chief of RAW.
V Balachandran, another former official of the RAW, pointed out that in spite of such allegations making the rounds of security agencies for the last 20 years, no meaningful probe has been initiated to get to the truth of the matter.
Politicians have used hawala transactions to park money received via bribes and other immoral ways for scores of years. Their money has changed hands via operatives in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.
“Hawala operators help both politicians and businessmen transfer large sums of money to untraceable foreign account, often in Swiss banks,” said an official of the IB.
The Jain Hawala scam, which had pulled in many leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party with its tentacles, was allegedly worth $18 million.
Intelligence reports had suggested that some of the amount was used to support Kashmir-based militant groups like the Hizbul Mujahideen.
“Politicians, businessmen and film stars route black money through hawala to ensure that the money is not taxed. Most hawala operators work with the blessings of the ISI. The spy agency then uses the information to blackmail Indian politicians each time probe agencies try to unearth details of such deals,” said the official.
Since an obscene amount of money is involved in such transactions, politicians can go to any length to hide their corrupt practices, said the IB official.
Such leaders, he said, won’t even hesitate to scuttle a probe into a terror strike, if urged to do so by the ISI.
In the last 25 years, an unbelievable Rs 73 lakh crore is believed to have been siphoned off by hawala transactions.
In just four years — between 2002 and 2006 — black money worth Rs 6,92,328 crore has made its way out of India to various Swiss banks and tax havens, thanks to the ISI’s pet hawala operators. – Rediff, 6 January 2014
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