Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Hawala Scam by Hassan Ali

Hasan Ali Khan (or Syed Mohammed Hassan Ali Khan[1], son of late Gayasuddin Ali Khan[2]) is a 53-year-old [3]alleged money-launderer[4] based in India and allegedly worth USD 9 billion or more, according to law-authorities. This figure has been verified from a letter written by UBS (Zurich) to Khan. The Government of India has also confirmed the existence of this account in UBS, and ordered him to pay Indian Rupee ₹50,000 crore (US$11.1 billion) in taxes on that wealth. However, according to Khan, he is a scrap dealer with an annual income of Indian Rupee ₹30 lakh (US$66,600).[5] Some sources claim that he might be the fourth richest person in India and amongst the world's dollar billionaires.[6] However, he is not officially recognized as a billionaire by any publication because most of his money is in the form of unaccounted wealth or black money. This can be considered true because India tops the list for black money in the entire world with almost US$1456 billion in Swiss banks (USD 1.4 trillion approximately) in the form of black money.[7] According to the data provided by the Swiss Banking Association Report (2006), India has more black money than the rest of the world combined.[8][9] Indian Swiss bank account assets are worth 13 times the country’s national debt.[10] In Swiss bank accounts, the account holder need not even give his or her name. Perhaps that explains why Hasan Ali Khan's name does not figure in any UBS accounts. Also, the account holder's name need not even appear in any of the official documents of the account.[11]
The Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax department along with the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Maharashtra are probing the illegal investments and charges of money laundering against Khan.[12] The Supreme Court of India (SC) questioned the Central Government’s inertia on this issue: “What the hell is going on in this country?[13] There are instances when minor offenders are shot down for violating Section 144 CrPC, but you don't take any action against these people. We are very sorry. All these people are now free.[14] What is in the way of taking action against Hasan Ali? How many years will investigations continue against Ali?” Despite this, the Central Government doesn't intend to prosecute Khan under India’s money laundering law simply because it hadn’t gone into effect at the time the alleged crimes were committed.[15][16]
The Indian Income Tax tribunal also reportedly asked Ali to reply to their show-cause notice. Ali reportedly has not paid his tax evasion penalty worth Indian Rupee ₹40,000 crore (US$8.88 billion). To put this amount in perspective, the government hopes to raise Indian Rupee ₹359,990 crore (US$79.92 billion) in income tax from the whole country in 2011-12.[17] Four immovable properties and some small assets of Khan have been attached. The total value of the assets seized would not be more than Indian Rupee ₹7 crore (US$1.55 million). Khan recently paid income tax of only Indian Rupee ₹10 lakh (US$22,200).[18] The Indian income-tax department is going to impose a 200% penalty on Khan, seeking Indian Rupee ₹210,000 crore (US$46.62 billion) - an amount which is 2.7% of India's entire GDP, and in a country where per capita income of an honest person does not usually exceed Indian Rupee ₹52,920 (US$1,174.82).[19]

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