Police in Maharashtra’s Thane district on Tuesday night arrested three people after seizing approximately Rs 1.04 crore in new Rs 2,000 currency notes from them, The Hindu reported. Police officers said they received inputs that the three were coming to Thane from an unspecified location to exchange the new notes for demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes at a 20% commission.
A senior officer said a team of policemen posed as customers in order to trap the three people. They were then arrested and taken for further questioning. Officials also informed the Income Tax Department about the arrests, after which a team was sent to interrogate the three. Investigators are also looking into how the individuals managed to obtain the money and if they had colluded with bank employees to do so.
This is the latest in a series of arrests around the country of people found with large amounts of new currency notes. On Tuesday, investigators seized more than Rs 19.4 crore and made several arrests in separate cases across the country. The Central Bureau of Investigation arrested a senior Reserve Bank of India official and two others in Bengaluru for exchanging old currency notes worth Rs 1.51 crore.
In a database of new currency seized, curated by public policy professional Meghnad S, nearly Rs 160 crore in the newly-issued bills seems to have been recovered in raids and arrests so far.
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