Torres Jewellery case: ED seizes Rs 6.3 crore cash from 'hawala' operators

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday said it has seized Rs 6.3 crore in cash during fresh searches conducted against "angadias" and "hawala" operators in Mumbai and Surat in connection with the Torres Jewellery money-laundering case. The federal probe agency said in a statement that the raids were carried out at four premises by its Mumbai zonal office on Friday.

The action pertains to the money-laundering case against Platinum Hern Private Limited that operated under the brand name Torres Jewellery and is alleged to have cheated its customers after collecting a "huge" amount of cash from them in lieu of the sale of Moissanite diamonds and other jewellery.

The ED case stems from a police FIR filed in Navi Mumbai.


"Instead of using the said cash for its legitimate business purposes, it has been routed through hawala operators and later, converted into USDT cryptocurrency," the ED said.

Alpesh Khara, an alleged "hawala" operator and a "key" person in the case, facilitated the collection of cash from Torres showrooms across Mumbai on the instructions of foreign nationals Oleksandr Zapichenko alias Alex and Olena Stoian (two among the many alleged masterminds of the fraud), the agency claimed.

Khara is also accused of assisting the two in the "conversion" of this money into USDT cryptocurrency.

Khara was arrested by the ED in March.

Khara was one of the franchise owners of a known "angadia" entity that has branches across the country and a "huge" amount of cash has exchanged hands through those branches as well as various "hawala" operators, the ED alleged.

The searches against these operators in Mumbai and Surat led to the seizure of Rs 6.3 crore in cash as well as "incriminating" digital devices.

"Angadias" are a set of people who transfer huge amounts of cash in the physical form from one place to another, while "hawala" dealers do it by either using cash or bank accounts of shell or dummy companies.

The ED had conducted searches in connection with the case in January and frozen bank deposits of Rs 21.75 crore.