Arrest of air hostess with Rs 3 crore in dollar busts laundering racket
NEW DELHI : Arrested Jet Air Hostess’ Husband Deposited Her Money, Didn’t Know Source Deveshi Kulshrestha, 25, was arrested from a flight about to leave for Hong Kong from the Delhi airport in the early hours of Monday. She was allegedly roped into smuggling out foreign currency multiple times as part of an international network.
Arrested Jet Air Hostess’ Husband Deposited Her Money, Didn’t Know Source
Deveshi Kulshrestha allegedly hid 100 dollar bills wrapped in foil and hidden beneath clothes and shoes.
Deveshi Kulshrestha was allegedly paid Rs. 1 lakh for each trip Investigators say Ms Kulshrestha’s husband was not aware of her dealings.Her husband was a former Jet Airways employee. According to a tv channel A Jet Airways air hostess accused of trying to smuggling Rs. 3.34 crore in US dollars has named two more employees of the airline.
Deveshi Kulshrestha, 25, was arrested from a flight about to leave for Hong Kong from the Delhi airport in the early hours of Monday. She was allegedly roped into smuggling out foreign currency multiple times as part of an international network.She has allegedly given details about two more Jet employees involved in the hawala transactions.
The air hostess was married a year ago to a former Jet Airways employee who now works for a placement company.She was allegedly persuaded to smuggle cash in her baggage by hawala operator Amit Malhotra, who befriended her about six months ago.
After a tip-off, a team of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence entered a flight that had just started boarding for departure at 2 am and searched Ms Kulshrestha’s bags. They found wads of 100 dollar bills wrapped in foil and hidden beneath a layer of clothes and shoes. The money passed the x-ray because of the aluminium foil, officials said.
According to investigators, Amit Malhotra was in touch with some more crew members of the airline.Using his airline contacts, he would send illegal money abroad. The money would be used to buy gold, which would then be channeled to India, officials said.Ms Kulshrestha allegedly came in contact with Amit Malhotra when he promised good rates for foreign exchange.
In Ms Kulshrestha’s check-in luggage, there were 32 bundles of notes, neatly wrapped in foil, and 16 more in her hand-baggage.
“She had already boarded the plane. Passengers were about to board. After we received information, we first stopped boarding and then checked her hand baggage and recovered cash,” an officer associated with the probe told the channel.
A day after the arrest of a Jet Airways cabin crew member with $4,80,200 (Rs 3.21crore), Directorate of Revenue Intelligence sleuths caught Amit Malhotra (40), the alleged mastermind of this international money laundering syndicate. Malhotra had been sending large amounts of foreign currency wrapped in aluminium foil in Devshi Kulshrestha’s baggage for the past six months, police said.
The police have recovered $2,500, Rs 3.3 lakh in Indian currency and documents from Malhotra and are investigating whether Malhotra had more cabin crew on his rolls. The two were produced before a magistrate on Tuesday evening and have been remanded in judicial custody in Tihar jail for two days. More arrests are likely.
Amit Malhotra, a resident of Vivek Vihar, ran a tour agency as a front for his money-laundering activities. According to DRI officials, he was in touch with 15-20 businessmen whose money was first converted into foreign currency and then sent to places like Hong Kong. The stacks of dollars were wrapped in aluminium foil and carbon sheets to dodge X-ray machines at airports.(With Agency Inputs ).
