Man held with ‘hawala money’

The Aminjikarai police secured a man in possession of Rs 5.79 lakh when he tried to deposit the money to different bank accounts at a cash deposit machine on Tuesday.

Following an anonymous alert that a man was seen depositing huge sums of cash at an ATM kiosk in Pulla Avenue, the Aminjikarai police rushed to the spot and secured the accused.

He was identified as S Yusuf Ali (39) of Kodungaiyur. Investigation revealed that Yusuf was doing it for his boss, Mohammed. Mohammed handed over Rs 11 lakh to Yusuf on NSC Bose Road on Monday afternoon and asked him to deposit it to different bank accounts. While Yusuf managed to deposit nearly Rs 5.20 lakh, he was secured with the remaining cash.

As Yusuf had no documents to prove the source of the cash, the police suspect that it could be hawala money and alerted the income tax officials. When contacted, the police said Yusuf would be handed over to the I-T department for further investigation.