Hawala dealer Sahil Sakariya Jain, who was arrested in connection with the gold smuggling activities of Kannada actor Ranya Rao and Telugu actor Virat Konduru, was involved in a major gold smuggling racket operating out of Kolkata in 2019-2020 and was named in a Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) prosecution complaint in 2022, officials said.
Jain was arrested on March 26 in Bengaluru for allegedly being the intended receiver of the gold Rao, 33, smuggled from Dubai. Countering Jain’s bail plea, the DRI Wednesday cited his prior gold smuggling antecedents. During arguments in a special court for economic offences, DRI counsel Madhu N Rao referred to a DRI complaint filed under the Customs Act in a Kolkata magistrate’s court on March 5, 2022 in a case involving the smuggling of 41.64 kg of gold to counter Jain’s counsel’s claim that the 26-year-old had no prior history of crime.
“A false claim has been made of A3 having no criminal antecedents. He was named as accused number 10 in a prosecution complaint for a gold smuggling case in Kolkata in 2022. He is accused of arranging couriers for the transport of large quantities of gold from Kolkata to other cities,” the DRI counsel argued, seeking rejection of Jain’s bail plea.
Between 2019 and 2020, the DRI received intelligence about a smuggling syndicate operating from Kolkata, Mumbai and Raipur, which was smuggling foreign-marked gold from Bangladesh through the Indo-Bangladesh borders of North 24 Parganas in West Bengal. Based on the intelligence, the 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.
Initially, one of the gold carriers found with 6.98 kg of gold in Mumbai in December 2019 said the intended receiver of the gold was Jain, who was living in Mumbai at the time. Jain was arrested and found to be a key player in the smuggling racket.
On Thursday, during arguments in the special court in Bengaluru, the DRI counsel argued that Jain had valid visas to travel to China and Thailand and posed a flight risk if granted bail. The DRI counsel told the court that Jain was a key player in the gold smuggling racket in Bengaluru that has emerged following the March 3 arrest of Rao alias Harshavardini Ranya at Bengaluru International Airport on her arrival from Dubai with 14.2 kg of gold valued at ₹12.56 crore concealed on her body. The smuggling of the 14.2 kg of gold would have resulted in customs duty evasion of ₹4.83 crore, the DRI said.
Prior to Rao’s arrest on March 3, Jain had received 49.6 kg of smuggled gold valued at ₹40.13 crore from the actor following visits to Dubai between November 2024 and February 2025, the DRI counsel argued.
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The actor, who is the stepdaughter of a senior Karnataka police officer of the rank of Director General of Police, is alleged to have used the police protocol services available at Bengaluru airport to the senior IPS officer to bypass physical checks at the airport.
Sources said a close relative of the hawala dealer was arrested in 2013 in connection with a gold smuggling and foreign exchange violation case where diplomatic channels from the UAE were used to smuggle gold into India.
According to the DRI’s investigation of Jain’s deals with Rao, he received 8.98 kg of gold worth ₹6.82 crore in November 2024 from the actress; 12.62 kg of gold worth ₹9.94 crore in December 2024; 14.56 kg of gold valued at ₹11.55 crore in January 2025; and 13.43 kg of gold worth ₹11.80 crore in February 2025.
According to the DRI probe, Jain transferred ₹38.39 crore of the ₹40.13 crore to Rao through the hawala route, and around ₹1.73 crore in Bengaluru via hawala exchanges. Jain said he had received a commission of ₹55,000 for every consignment of smuggled gold he received from the actor in Bengaluru and for facilitating the transfer of funds from the sales to Dubai.
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The US passport of Telugu actor Virat Konduru alias Tarun Konduru Raju (36) was used to pass the gold through Dubai customs checks before smuggling it to India, the DRI said.
The DRI indicated that the two actors travelled to Dubai as many as 31 times since January 2024, with as many as 25 trips being single-day affairs where they reached Dubai by a morning flight and returned by an evening flight.
The special court for economic offences has reserved its orders on Jain’s bail plea.
On Wednesday, Rao also moved the Karnataka High Court for bail following rejection of her earlier bail pleas by the special court for economic offences on March 14 and a sessions court on March 27. The High Court has posted the case for April 17 after ordering notices to the DRI to respond to the bail plea.