Accounted, First Hand

I had some black money which I wanted to bring to Delhi from back home. I asked a friend of mine to help me carry it on the train. Instead he asked me to get it through hawala. I asked how it was done. He took me to a person who does it almost every other day. He was short, with a typical lala potbelly, and wore all kinds of stones on his fingers. He was sitting behind a small counter of a small metal hardware shop. After I was introduced, he took us to the inner cabin, where I gave him the money. He took out a Rs 10 note, attached his visiting card and wrote the name, address and the phone number of the person I was supposed to get the money from in Delhi. Then he called up that person and gave him the serial number of the note and asked him to give one motorcycle to the person carrying it. 'Motorcycle' was their password for the amount of money to be paid.

On reaching Delhi, I called up the guy. He asked me to come to his shop the next day at 3 pm. There was a man in his mid-60s sitting behind the counter and all kinds of metal hardware were lying around. I gave him my name and address and the reason for coming there—and also the Rs 10 note and the visiting card. He looked at it and asked me to go further inside the shop and wait. After some time a young man came. In his hand he had the Rs 10 note. He handed me a black polythene bag, which contained bundles of Rs 100 notes. He then replaced the Rs 10 note with a new one and asked me to call the dealer back home. He then called the same person and gave him the serial number of the new note. I later learned that this was proof of an accomplished deal. All it cost me was 50 paise per Rs 100 transferred."