Kozhikode: While rich merchants of Kozhikode chase chartered accounts and pay huge consultation fees, the local hawala dealers of the district have devised novel methods to monetize the cash stashed away by them. They have come up with low cost techniques to convert their lakhs of unaccounted money. One method adopted is taking over the loan installments of people. A dealer from Koduvally said, “Bank loans are one thing that every single person will proudly own, hence we contact such people and give them cash for their installments and in return take back cheques.
A person having a monthly loan repayment of Rs 10,000 will be given Rs 12,500 for repayment. Rs 2,500 will be their commission for this service. If we are able to find more such people, a major tension to monetize the cash will be solved,” he said. The other method being adopted is by targeting the thousands of migrant laborers coming to the district on a daily basis for work.
“There will hardly be any migrant labourer in the district without a bank loan, an ATM or at least an identity proof. I am sure I will be able to source a minimum of 500 such workers who will be told to pay a maximum Rs 40,000 into their account for which we will give them a commission of Rs 500 or Rs 1000.” He went onto say, “In return we take the ATM card or cheques from these migrants and after one or two weeks we will take back the money from the ATMs using their card and password,” he added.
