Thiruvananthapuram: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday conducted searches at about a dozen locations in Kerala as part of an investigation against the network of hawala operators in the state, official sources said.

The federal probe agency launched the raids in the evening against the entities who were allegedly undertaking hawala transactions in the guise of forex dealership, gift shop business, and textiles and gold business.

The searches are being conducted under the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), the sources said.

A "large racket" of forex dealers sending hawala funds to the Gulf countries, the US and Canada was under the scanner of the agency, they said.

An unquantified sum of Indian and foreign currency has been found in some "secret" vaults and the agency sleuths are verifying the cash dumps, the sources said.

Hawala denotes illegal and fraudulent KYC-based monetary transactions through both banking and non-banking channels. PTI