Kozhikode: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has begun a probe into the purported hawala transactions entered into by the parallel telephone exchange racket, which had been busted in Bangalore and across Kerala last week by the police.

The ED took details from the police investigating teams about the modus operandi of the parallel telephone exchange in Kerala and how it is linked to hawala and gold smuggling rackets.

It was detected earlier by the investigating agency that the hawala money transactions of the parallel telephone exchange mafia in Kerala were based in Dubai. The money was later routed to different parts of Kerala and outside the State through hawala racket. The ED is empowered to register a case directly since it is found that the black money was routed from a foreign country to India.

Many NRI residents in Dubai were given calling cards by the hawala mafia. They were used as a pawn for running illicit hawala and gold smuggling rackets. Their remuneration was deposited in their accounts in Dubai. Later, the money deposited there would reach Kerala through a hawala racket.

The police had seized a number of cash counting machines from Ibrahim Pullottil, the key accused in the parallel telephone exchange case.

Pullottil and his gang members were supplied black money purportedly by a hawala racket operating in Kozhikode. The police are learnt to have obtained proof that Pullottil and Shabeer, who is wanted by the police in running a parallel telephone exchange, had received money from a hawala racket in Kozhikode.