Anantapur Superintendent of Police Fakkeerappa Kaginelli displaying the cash seized from the accused, at Gooty in Anantapur district on Friday.
| Photo Credit: R.V.S. Prasad
The Anantapur police on Friday nabbed a hawala money extortion gang from Kerala and recovered ₹1.89 crore, while arresting four members of the gang in Gooty.
Superintendent of Police Fakeerappa Kaginelli at a press conference presented the cash seized from the hawala extortion gang members in a painstaking investigation that was named ‘Operation Ananta’.
The police focused on the Sreedharan gang, which was reportedly looting money from people transporting hawala cash from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, and arrested four members, seized two cars, five mobiles, and 13 vehicle number plates near GATES College in Gooty.
The arrested gang members were identified as Kolapurambil Abu Nishad, 40, Jackson Phillip, 29, Kannan Riagu, 25, and Othavath Shamim, 38, all hailing from Kerala.
Anantapur police cooperated with Karnataka and Tamil Nadu police to extensively monitor CCTV footage within a radius of 400 km and kept a tab on the movements of vehicles at 40 toll plazas before nabbing the gang members.
Twenty-five police teams (100 personnel) travelled across five States and collected information from Anantapur police. The cash is being sent to the Income Tax Department which will investigate the source of the cash.
Key members of the gang are yet to be nabbed, the SP said, adding that an investigation is on.
