India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) has conducted searches at traders’ premises where trade-based money laundering or terrorist financing is suspected in transactions across the Line of Control (LoC) between the Indian and Pakistani controlled parts of the former state of Jammu and Kashmir.

The agency’s officers searched 27 locations in Srinagar and Delhi in an operation that also involved searches of hawala operators’ premises.

Terrorist groups

The searches where prompted by names that emerged during the NIA’s investigations into the funding of mainly Kashmiri separatist groups which India sees as terrorist organisations and associated cross-LoC-trade cases.

According to the NIA, its searches have unearthed cash as well as incriminating documents pertaining to financial transactions connected with cross-LoC trade.

Officers have seized digital devices including laptops, mobile phones and hard disks as well as the diaries of traders and hawala operators containing their contacts and ledger books containing accounts of cross-border trade.

Mis-invoicing

The traders subjected to the raids are alleged to have channelled funds across the border by mis-invoicing imports from across the LoC.

The NIA first unearthed trade-based financial crime in the same area in 2016 when it collected documents from trade facilitation centres across the LoC.

Examination of these revealed massive discrepancies between the market and invoice prices across a wide range of goods.

Categories: Trade Based Financial crimes News