Hawala dealer Sahil Jain's uncle arrested by DRI in multi-crore gold smuggling case
According to DRI officials, Bharat Kumar Jain, a jewellery and hawala trader, was arrested in late July, and sent to 14 days of judicial custody. Bharat Kumar Jain is the uncle of Sahil Sakariya Jain, 27, a hawala dealer who is the third accused in the Bengaluru gold smuggling case that unravelled in March this year after the arrest of Ranya Rao, alias Harshavardhini Ranya, 33.
Bharat Kumar Jain was involved in the distribution of the gold smuggled into India from Dubai by the two actors, and for hawala transfers of funds to facilitate the smuggling, DRI said after it presented him before a judge for special economic offences in Bengaluru.
Sahil Jain and Bharat Jain have allegedly been found to be part of a sophisticated smuggling network operating in India and abroad.
Gold smuggling case in Kolkata
Sources said Bharat and Sahil were named in complaint filed by DRI under the Customs Act in a Kolkata magistrate's court on March 5, 2022, in a case involving smuggling of 41.64 kg of gold where they are alleged to have arranged couriers for the transport of large quantities of gold from the West Bengal capital to other cities in India like Mumbai and Raipur.
Between 2019 and 2020, DRI received intelligence that a smuggling syndicate operating from Kolkata, Mumbai, and Raipur was smuggling foreign-marked gold from Bangladesh through the Indo-Bangladesh borders of North 24 Parganas in West Bengal.
Based on the intelligence, DRI carried out operations to recover the smuggled gold and intercepted persons carrying smuggled gold in Kolkata, Raipur, and Mumbai, leading to the recovery of 41.64 kg of gold.
One of the gold carriers, who was found with 6.98 kg of gold in Mumbai in December 2019, reported that the intended receiver of the gold was Sahil Jain, who was living in Mumbai at the time. He was arrested by DRI and found to be a key player in a major smuggling racket.
Bengaluru gold smuggling case
DRI has alleged Ranya Rao smuggled 49.6 kg of gold valued at over Rs 40 crore from Dubai between November 2024 and February 2025. This was apart from the 14.2 kg of gold worth Rs 12.56 crore that was seized on March 3 by DRI at the Bengaluru airport.
Rao is alleged to have handed over the gold to Sahil Jain, who paid for the consignments through hawala transfers of funds to Dubai and India. Sahil was arrested on March 26 by DRI after he was identified during investigations as the intended recipient of 14.2 kg of gold smuggled from Dubai by Rao in association with Konduru Raju.
Ranya Rao, Virat Konduru, and Sahil Jain were ordered on April 22 by the Centre to be detained for a year under the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act (COFEPOSA).
The Cofeposa advisory board in Bengaluru recently confirmed their April 22 Cofeposa detention order.
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