A meat exporter is at the centre of what is being called India’s next Radia Tapes.
The income tax department has text and phone records of Moin Qureshi, an exporter of meat, who is being investigated for tax evasion and money laundering.
As president of Doon School Old Boy’s Association, Qureshi’s list of phone contacts presumably includes many among the movers and shakers of Lutyen's Delhi.
A sample of his text exchanges with AP Singh, the former director of CBI, has been published in the Indian Express. The two men appear to discuss matters ranging from the case against a former banker, clearances for a project of GMR group and membership to Delhi’s prestigious Golf Club.
As an official with an investigative agency has predicted in the Economic Times, regardless of whether these exchanges help unearth criminality, much like the Radia Tapes they could destroy reputations.
Yet it is not just in India that the meat trade is ridden with allegations of money laundering and other illegality. It seems to be a problem afflicting the global trade.
Meat Laundering
When outrage broke out in Europe in 2012 over horsemeat being sold as beef in the supermarkets, it shone fleeting light on the shadowy world of meat trade, where horsemeat travels from Eastern Europe to the west, while money flows to accounts in offshore tax havens. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, investigators launched an operation codenamed ‘Meat’. In Netherlands, a meat trader was investigated for money laundering. At the time, the British tabloid Daily Mail published a story on his lavish lifestyle in London; much in the same way, the internet in India is currently agog with stories about Moin Qureshi’s affluence and extravagance.
On the other end of the globe, in South America, Colombian officials believe the meat traded at the border with Venezuela is used by guerillas to launder money and generate revenues for the purchase of cocaine.
In Africa, when Saudi Arabia decided not to import meat from Sudan citing high prices, Sudanese meat exporters blamed the price rise on ‘unlicensed individuals’ who had entered the market to use it as a cover for money laundering.
What makes the meat industry so suitable for money laundering?
Like most agricultural commodities that are traded over long distances, the trade of meat contains ample opportunities for trade mispricing. Exporters can overstate the volume and value of their exports to show higher earnings. If you sell goods worth 100 rupees but declare earnings of 200 rupees, you could bring 100 rupees of illicit funds into legal banking channels. Over-invoicing exports and under-invoicing imports is a key method of laundering black money.
Fluctuations in market conditions for agricultural commodities, coupled with poor flow of information, leaves space to misquote the real prices of goods, thereby allowing money laundering in the guise of trade. What is less clear is whether such opportunities are greater in the case of meat than other commodities. The Moin Qureshi case could give more insight on the subject, said an expert who tracks black money.
India’s Trade
This is important because India's meat trade has been witnessing rapid growth.
India has become the largest exporter of beef in the word, outpacing Australia. (Beef export from India means the shipment of buffalo meat, known as carabeef in the global market. Shipment of cow meat is banned.)
In 2013-14, the country exported 1,449,758 million tonnes of carabeef, valued at 264,578 million rupees. This is not much less than the 292,999 million rupees that the country earns through the export of basmati rice.
If this growth continues beef could outstrip basmati rice as India's leading agri-export. The largest export markets for India are Vietnam, Malaysia, Egypt, Thailand and Saudi Arabia.
The leading importer of Indian beef is Vietnam, where high growth rates and a flourishing tourism sector appear to be fuelling a rising demand for meat. In addition, Vietnamese traders re-export the beef to neighbouring China, which does not import directly from India.
But there could be more to the spiralling meat trade. Doubts have been expressed over the accuracy of Vietnam's import data. “Vietnam’s system of recording imports of meat and poultry is still very weak,” noted a report prepared by the Canadian agricultural ministry. A poor system of recording imports increases the scope for over-invoicing by exporters.
While there is no evidence to link meat imports in Vietnam to money laundering, in Malaysia, which is the second largest import market for Indian beef, a meat and livestock importing company connected to the family of a former cabinet minister is facing allegations of money laundering.
Neighbouring Indonesia has been rocked by an even more colourful money laundering scandal involving a meat importing company and members of an Islamic party, one of whom was arrested from a hotel room while in the company of a young woman. The unfolding sex scandal, involving payments made to a large number of women, overshadowed the murky financial transactions made by the meat company – much like Qureshi’s social universe seems to be dominating the discussion around the case in India.
An official of the finance ministry had indeed mooted the idea of transferring the case to the special investigative team set up to probe black money. But it was shot down by an official of the income tax department, the Indian Express reported, who “requested that the case be kept out of SIT’s purview considering its “sensitivity”.”
We welcome your comments at
letters@scroll.in.
The income tax department has text and phone records of Moin Qureshi, an exporter of meat, who is being investigated for tax evasion and money laundering.
As president of Doon School Old Boy’s Association, Qureshi’s list of phone contacts presumably includes many among the movers and shakers of Lutyen's Delhi.
A sample of his text exchanges with AP Singh, the former director of CBI, has been published in the Indian Express. The two men appear to discuss matters ranging from the case against a former banker, clearances for a project of GMR group and membership to Delhi’s prestigious Golf Club.
As an official with an investigative agency has predicted in the Economic Times, regardless of whether these exchanges help unearth criminality, much like the Radia Tapes they could destroy reputations.
Yet it is not just in India that the meat trade is ridden with allegations of money laundering and other illegality. It seems to be a problem afflicting the global trade.
Meat Laundering
When outrage broke out in Europe in 2012 over horsemeat being sold as beef in the supermarkets, it shone fleeting light on the shadowy world of meat trade, where horsemeat travels from Eastern Europe to the west, while money flows to accounts in offshore tax havens. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, investigators launched an operation codenamed ‘Meat’. In Netherlands, a meat trader was investigated for money laundering. At the time, the British tabloid Daily Mail published a story on his lavish lifestyle in London; much in the same way, the internet in India is currently agog with stories about Moin Qureshi’s affluence and extravagance.
On the other end of the globe, in South America, Colombian officials believe the meat traded at the border with Venezuela is used by guerillas to launder money and generate revenues for the purchase of cocaine.
In Africa, when Saudi Arabia decided not to import meat from Sudan citing high prices, Sudanese meat exporters blamed the price rise on ‘unlicensed individuals’ who had entered the market to use it as a cover for money laundering.
What makes the meat industry so suitable for money laundering?
Like most agricultural commodities that are traded over long distances, the trade of meat contains ample opportunities for trade mispricing. Exporters can overstate the volume and value of their exports to show higher earnings. If you sell goods worth 100 rupees but declare earnings of 200 rupees, you could bring 100 rupees of illicit funds into legal banking channels. Over-invoicing exports and under-invoicing imports is a key method of laundering black money.
Fluctuations in market conditions for agricultural commodities, coupled with poor flow of information, leaves space to misquote the real prices of goods, thereby allowing money laundering in the guise of trade. What is less clear is whether such opportunities are greater in the case of meat than other commodities. The Moin Qureshi case could give more insight on the subject, said an expert who tracks black money.
India’s Trade
This is important because India's meat trade has been witnessing rapid growth.
India has become the largest exporter of beef in the word, outpacing Australia. (Beef export from India means the shipment of buffalo meat, known as carabeef in the global market. Shipment of cow meat is banned.)
In 2013-14, the country exported 1,449,758 million tonnes of carabeef, valued at 264,578 million rupees. This is not much less than the 292,999 million rupees that the country earns through the export of basmati rice.
If this growth continues beef could outstrip basmati rice as India's leading agri-export. The largest export markets for India are Vietnam, Malaysia, Egypt, Thailand and Saudi Arabia.
The leading importer of Indian beef is Vietnam, where high growth rates and a flourishing tourism sector appear to be fuelling a rising demand for meat. In addition, Vietnamese traders re-export the beef to neighbouring China, which does not import directly from India.
But there could be more to the spiralling meat trade. Doubts have been expressed over the accuracy of Vietnam's import data. “Vietnam’s system of recording imports of meat and poultry is still very weak,” noted a report prepared by the Canadian agricultural ministry. A poor system of recording imports increases the scope for over-invoicing by exporters.
While there is no evidence to link meat imports in Vietnam to money laundering, in Malaysia, which is the second largest import market for Indian beef, a meat and livestock importing company connected to the family of a former cabinet minister is facing allegations of money laundering.
Neighbouring Indonesia has been rocked by an even more colourful money laundering scandal involving a meat importing company and members of an Islamic party, one of whom was arrested from a hotel room while in the company of a young woman. The unfolding sex scandal, involving payments made to a large number of women, overshadowed the murky financial transactions made by the meat company – much like Qureshi’s social universe seems to be dominating the discussion around the case in India.
An official of the finance ministry had indeed mooted the idea of transferring the case to the special investigative team set up to probe black money. But it was shot down by an official of the income tax department, the Indian Express reported, who “requested that the case be kept out of SIT’s purview considering its “sensitivity”.”
