Overview

• Police arrested Pawan, a Bikaner resident, during a raid in Ludhiana and recovered ₹2.05 crore in suspected hawala cash.
• The arrest raises the tally to 39 in the Kapurthala probe launched after a September 19 bust of a Phagwara resort call-centre that yielded 40 laptops, 67 phones and ₹10 lakh.
• Investigators identified Amrinder Singh alias Sabhi Tohri as the alleged operator who leased the Phagwara premises, with links to a contact named Suraj in Delhi and a suspect named Shen in Kolkata.
• Preliminary findings indicate transactions moved primarily through Bitcoin, with parallel hawala channels under scrutiny and efforts ongoing to locate the Ludhiana-based hawala operator.
• Police cited provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the IT Act in the case, noting suspects hail from multiple states as teams work to establish forward and backward linkages.