August 08, 2011

Hawala codes

The Indian Express on the codes used by Kashmiri separatist leaders and militants in illegal cross-border financial transactions ('NIA decodes: Chini is hawala money, Re 1 is Rs 1 lakh', The Indian Express, 8 August 2011):
‘Dukaan khol kar rakho’ (open the shop) meant ‘switch on the mobile phone’; ‘dawai le li hai’ (bought the medicine) meant ‘money has been taken’. These were among some of the codes — now part of the NIA chargesheet — that terrorists from Pakistan used for communicating with four separatist leaders who are now in jail in an alleged hawala racket.
Hawala refers to a traditional Indian system of remitting money, now deemed illegal. A description can be found here