Foreign governments should enforce law impartially for safety and legal rights of Chinese citizens: China

The Chinese embassy on Wednesday, reacting on Chinese nationals being involved in hawala transactions, said that foreign governments and relevant departments should enforce the law impartially to ensure the safety and legal rights of Chinese citizens.

This comes a day after the Income Tax Department on August 11 conducted searches in 21 locations in Delhi, Ghaziabad, and Gurugram after getting "credible information" of the Chinese involvement in money laundering. The search on the premises of Chinese entities took place after inputs that few Chinese individuals and their Indian associates were involved in money laundering and hawala transactions through series of shell entities, according to a CBDT statement. 

In a statement, the Chinese embassy said, "The Chinese government has always required overseas Chinese citizens to abide by local laws and regulations. At the same time, we also require foreign governments and relevant departments to enforce the law impartially to ensure the safety and legal rights of Chinese citizens."

According to the CBDT, the Chinese nationals created more than 40 bank accounts and credited more than Rs. 1000 crores.

Further, incriminating documents related to hawala transactions and money laundering with "active involvement of bank employees and Chartered accountants" have also surfaced.

In this raid, the name of Chinese national Luo Sang, who took the fake identity 'Charlie Peng' emerged. According to the CBDT, he was using 8-10 bank accounts and represented fake Chinese companies in hawala operations worth Rs 300 crore. Sang, a Chinese national who was arrested on Tuesday night in a raid by the Income Tax department under charges of money laundering and representing fake Chinese companies in hawala transactions, was earlier arrested by Delhi Police on spying charges.

It has come to light that Luo Sang, who took a fake identity 'Charlie Peng' in India, had earlier been arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police in September 2018, under charges of espionage. According to sources, the Delhi Police had alleged that 'Charlie Peng' was spying for China and also running money laundering and hawala transaction businesses.

Further, it has also come to light that this 'Charlie Peng' had married a Manipuri girl earlier to make the process of his acquiring an Indian passport, easier.

The Chinese national also allegedly provided 'money exchange' services as well. The police suspect that this 'Charlie Peng' also has links to other hawala transactions and money laundering criminal rings in India. Currently, the cops are attempting to dig out evidence in this regard.