"Oh, we'll get to the rates and stuff soon enough," he smiled again, sounding very American in the light-hearted aside. I knew he'd studied in New York when he was much younger. Khaderbhai had told me that he'd been happy there, for a time. A little of that happiness seemed to have survived in the long, rounded vowels and other Americanisms of his speech. "But first you need the theory, before you can make a profit from the practice."
The Indian rupee, Khaled explained, was a restricted currency. It couldn't be taken out of India, and it couldn't legally be changed for dollars anywhere in the world but in India. With its vast population, India sent many thousands of businessmen, businesswomen, and travellers out of the country every day. Those people were permitted to take out only a limited amount of American currency with them. They could change a fixed amount of their rupees into American dollars, and the rest had to be converted in the form of travellers' cheques.
The regulation was enforced in various ways. When someone wanted to leave the country and change rupees into dollars to the legal limit, he or she had to present a passport and plane ticket at the bank. The bank teller confirmed the departure date on the ticket, and marked both the ticket and the passport to indicate that the holder had been granted the full limit of American dollars in exchange for rupees. The transaction couldn't be duplicated. There was no legal way for the traveller to buy more American dollars for that journey.
Almost everyone in India had at least some black money under the bed. From the few hundred rupees that a working man earned and didn't report to the Tax Office, all the way to the billions of rupees accumulated as profits from crime, the black economy was said to be almost half as large as the legal, white econoriy.
Anyone who had thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of undeclared rupees-as many Indian business travellers did-couldn't buy legal travellers' cheques with them: the bank or the Tax Office always wanted to know where the money came from. So the only real alternative was to buy dollars from the black-market currency dealers. And every day, in Bombay, millions of rupees worth of black American dollars, English pounds, Deutschmarks, Swiss francs, and other currencies were bought and sold in a trade that was a dark mirror of the legal money exchanges.
"I buy a thousand American dollars, from a tourist, for eighteen thousand rupees, when the bank exchange rate is set at fifteen,"
Khaled summarised. "He's happy, because he's three thousand rupees better off than he would've been at the bank. Then I sell the dollars, to an Indian businessman, for
To find the tourists, and entice them to change their money, Khaderbhai's mafia council employed a small army of touts, guides, beggars, hotel managers, bellboys, restaurateurs, waiters, shopkeepers, airline officials, travel agents, nightclub owners, prostitutes, and cab drivers. Keeping tabs on them was one of Khaled's jobs. In the mornings he phoned all the businesses to establish exchange rates for all the important currencies. There were update calls every two hours throughout the day, advising of any fluctuations in the rates. A taxi was at his disposal around the clock, with two drivers operating in shifts. Every morning he visited the bagmen for each area, and handed over bundles of rupees for the street traders to use as their float. Touts and other street-level crooks dealt with the street traders, guiding tourists and businessmen to them. The traders changed money, and kept the foreign currencies in bundles to be collected. Bagmen did the rounds of traders throughout the day, supplying them with cash as they needed it. Collectors made several sweeps during each working day and night to pick up bundles of foreign currency.
Khaled supervised personal collections and exchanges at hotels, airline offices, travel agencies, and other businesses that required a greater degree of discretion. He made two major pick ups from his collectors in the key areas; one at noon, and one in the late evening. Relevant cops in every area were paid to look away from anything that might offend their sensibilities. In return, Khaderbhai promised that any violence he deemed necessary, in the event that someone tried to rob his men or hold out on them, would be swift and sure, and would never involve the police or threaten their interests in any way. The responsibility for maintaining discipline and enforcing Khader's control fell to Abdullah Taheri. His team of Indian goondas and Iranian veterans of the war with Iraq ensured that irregularities were rare, and ruthlessly punished.
