Mumbai Police bust mobile phone theft racket operating via hawala channel

Mumbai Police have busted a mobile phone theft racket operating through the ‘hawala’ channel and selling the stolen gadgets in Nepal and Bangladesh, an official said.

Hawala denotes illegal transaction of funds by skirting the legal banking channels.

The scale of the crime can be estimated from the fact that during a single raid, 480 mobile handsets including iphones were seized from a location at Maharashtra Nagar in Mankhurd area here on July 15, he said.

A preliminary investigation suggested the gang had links in other countries also, he said.