How Kashmiri businessmen overinvoiced goods to fund the unrest: Terror funds
New Delhi, Aug 18: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) which is now probing the inflow of funds into Jammu and Kashmir allegedly to fuel the unrest, is looking at the role played by some businessmen from the state doing business in Saudi Arabia.
While there have been some routine channels such as hawala that used to pump in the funds, the NIA has also learnt that some of the Kashmiri businessmen could have sent in money by over invoicing goods.
The NIA is preparing a list of the businessmen from Kashmir doing business in the Gulf. It has been learnt that some of the goods have been over invoiced. The businessmen are alleged to have transferred money to some accounts in Kashmir and in order to cover the same up, they have over invoiced the goods, NIA officials have learnt.
Inflow into banks
The NIA learnt about this new trick by the businessmen when they found a huge amount of cash deposited into at least 10 accounts in the state. NIA suspects that a sum of nearly Rs 30 crore had been pumped into the state since July 9 only to keep the unrest alive.
Investigations being conducted led to the trail of some Kashmiri businessmen doing business in the Gulf. It was found that they had transferred a large chunk of money and to cover the same up and show it as a genuine spending they have over invoiced the goods.
Further it has also been found that money was being transacted into 10 different accounts in the state. None of the transactions were above Rs 10 lakh and this was done to avoid the banks reporting a Suspicious Transaction Report.
The financiers of the unrest also chose to transact into different accounts once again to avoid an STR being generated.
Apart from the transactions into bank accounts, the NIA is also looking into the flow of funds through hawala channels. Terrorist organisations from Pakistan have been identifying the Kashmiris working in the Gulf and directing them to transact money through hawala channels, the NIA has also learnt.
Thorough confusion
Meanwhile the investigators are finding it hard to keep a track on the flow of funds. There has been a lot of transactions in the banks in the past month which large sums of money being withdrawn.
Nearly 80 per cent of the transactions are bonafide as people withdrew large sums of money due to the prolonged curfew in the Valley. Banks witnessed transactions to the tune of crores of rupees with several residents of the state withdrawing money.
Due to this some banks even set withdrawal limits. The withdrawal limit to ATMs was set at Rs 4,000 per day while cheque transactions were limited to Rs 20 lakh.
OneIndia News
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