THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Not too long ago, Kerala used to witness huge inflow of money from the Gulf region via the hawala channels.In Malayalam it was called Kuzhalppanam. Now, the same hawala channels are being used once again, but in the reverse direction.If the state’s top police officials are to be believed, money is getting routed to the Gulf countries, after recession hit the region, and this in turn is used by the loan sharks to lend out at astronomical rates, mostly to the Malayali labour class.According to people familiar with the reverse hawala operation, once the money is handed over to the expatriate’s dependents in Kerala, they collect the interest on a daily basis. ‘The meter is running’ is how it is referred to in local parlance.The ‘meter’ stops only when the capital amount is returned in full.The money is used by these rackets that are active in the state to carry out illegal money lending to Malayali labourers working abroad. They demand huge interest rates and give away the money after collecting their passports as security. Their agents working back home also collect deeds of land in Kerala as security. The scenario is hotting up and we are probing how many hawala agents are involved in this ,” said a top cop in Kerala.Hawla money is also flowing to Malaysia and parts of Singapore other than the Gulf region, he said.Reverse hawala has already claimed its first victim. This came to light recently after the arrest of Sherif from Attingal for the gruesome murder of his client Salim, an NRI from Saudi Arabia, which the police term as ‘murder for profit’. Sherif too used to work in Saudi Arabia.“Sherif, a taxi driver in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, had borrowed nearly Rs 75 lakh from Salim last year. He used the amount to run his own money lending operation to migrant workers in Riyadh. We are now probing the conspiracy theory and whether there are more people are involved in hawala transactions,” a police officer from the investigation team said.When ‘Express’ contacted NRIs working in Gulf region they said the loan sharks became active after the recession hit the market.“The loan sharks became active after the banks in here introduced stringent norms to grant loans, particularly to NRIs of low income group. The money lenders pay the money in Indian currency, through their agents, to the family of the NRIs in Kerala. The amount in turn is collected with high interest rate in Dirham within four to six months from the person working here by these groups,” said Suresh Kumar, working with a firm in Al Quasais in Dubai.Suresh is among the many familiar with the reverse hawala route that has been in force in the state for a while now.
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