Also, we are quietly irritated by the Indian media's habit of equating hawala with money laundering and, in some cases, saying they are the same.

A report in Deccan Chronicle four days after the immediate cancellation of existing 1000 and 500 rupee notes in circulation said that the Intelligence Bureau claimed that hawala transactions in major centres had dropped by as much as 80%.

That, too, we must be sceptical about.

Purporting to quote what it describes as a "classified report" without providing any details as to how or why it has seen it, Deccan Chronicle says "“In the last three days, there has been virtually no hawala transactions between Gulf countries and the Kashmir Valley,” said the IB in its classified report submitted to the Union home ministry on Friday evening."

The newspaper goes on "The drop is significant because money laundered through hawala channels is used to finance terror, drugs cartels, besides bribery and circulation of fake currency. " Well, yes, but so are banks and many others, and hawaladars also facilitate the making of trade payments far more quickly and far cheaper than banks.

India is particularly irate about hawala at present in part because of allegations that funding for civil unrest that followed the killing, allegedly by India, of a Kashmiri "militant" commander, Burhan Wani.

A report at NDTV.com says "After PM Modi Speech, Hawala (Money-Laundering) Spiked, Triggering Raids," implying that money laundering and hawala are the same. As a result of such baloney, the population of India is piling in with its own brand of ignorance and ego: one social media comment states "I am not an expert on such matters but I don’t think that such hawala transactions can be carried out post demonetization as both these denominations notes are reduced to papers until they are deposited in bank accounts or exchanged with new bigger or smaller denomination notes. With either of options, that black money will turn white. I can’t answer as to how can it still happen because some people can misuse that information to actually do them.( Bhargav Siddhapara, Believes in Government of India https://www.quora.com/Can-hawala-transaction-and-money-laundering-still…)

Hang on: toilet break. Writer laughing so much.

The simple fact is that the notes are of little consequence, especially in relation to international money movements. There is no reason at all why a hawaladar cannot pay out, in India, in the old notes and then leave the recipient with the problem of converting them. For outbound transactions, the hawaladar simply will not take in old notes.

The claims to be able to quantify the reduction in hawala relies on two assumptions: first that the amount of hawala was known before the notes were withdrawn and secondly that the amount of hawala is known now. That is highly unlikely to be so. By its very nature, hawala is hidden not only from the authorities but even from those who are not customers. To claim that the authorities know how much hawala is taking place is as unlikely to be so as if they said they know how much money is paid in bribes in India each year.

In any case, insofar as they can measure anything, it's only the, for want of a better word, formal (commercial?) sector. The informal sector, for example intra-family activity, is unlikely to ever come to light.