A major hawala racket smuggling foreign currencies to the UAE was busted following the deportation of three students from Dubai. The unsuspecting flyers were found carrying undeclared USD 400,100 in cash, concealed between pages of notebooks in their trolley bags.

Following the seizure, Indian Customs conducted raids at 10 locations across Pune, Ahmedabad, and Mumbai last week, leading to the arrest of a woman travel agent and a forex trader involved in the operation.

The Pune Airport Customs had detained three female students upon their arrival on a SpiceJet flight from Dubai last Monday, seizing the undeclared foreign currency valued at ₹3.47 crore. The students had been deported by UAE immigration and customs authorities.

"The three students were innocent and had been given the trolley bags containing foreign currency by the travel agent who had organized their Dubai trip," confirmed a senior Pune Customs official.

The three students, identified as Jasleen Kaur Gurudutta, Anchal Rajesh Mittal, and Sakshi Dipesh Shah, were held at Dubai airport on February 16 after failing to provide a valid explanation for carrying over USD 4 lakh in concealed cash. This led to their deportation to India the next day.

Upon their landing at Pune Airport, the Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) of Customs took them in for questioning and seized the smuggled foreign currency. The students revealed that they had taken the bags in good faith from their Pune-based travel agent, Khushboo Agarwal, who had claimed they contained urgent office documents for a Dubai-based office.

Further investigations into the foreign currency trail led to the identification of Mumbai-based travel agent and forex trader Mohammed Amir, who had arranged for the cash to be smuggled in unsuspecting passengers’ baggage.

Customs officials raided Amir’s office and seized unaccounted foreign currencies from 17 different countries, amounting to ₹45 lakh.

Both accused were arrested after their confession statements were recorded and were remanded to six days in customs custody for further investigation.