hawaladar

an agent, broker or courier in an hawala system; like a good bookie, an hawaladar keeps the numbers and transaction ‘nodes’ all in his/her head, all through an honor system, something westerners can’t seem to do. they may appear to be in the import-export or translator business.
how hawala works, as best understood in the west:

1. a customer approaches a hawala broker x hawaladarin one city and gives a sum of money that is to be transferred to a recipient in another, usually foreign, city. along with the money, he usually specifies something like a p-ssword that will lead to the money being paid out;
2. the hawala broker x calls another hawala broker m in the recipient’s city, and informs m about the agreed p-ssword, or gives other execution instructions for the funds;
3. the intended recipient who also has been informed by a about the p-ssword now approaches m and tells him the agreed p-ssword. if the p-ssword is correct, then
4. m releases the transferred sum to the end recipient, usually minus a small commission.

5. hawaladar x now basically owes hawaladar m the money that m had paid out to b; thus m has to trust x’s promise to settle the debt at a later date.

no promissory notes move between the hawala brokers.
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