The Uttar Pradesh Police and the National Investigation Agency on Wednesday seized demonetised currency notes to the tune of around Rs 97 crore from a locked house in Kanpur, ANI reported. The recovered cash was in Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes that the Centre had demonetised on November 8, 2016.
Acting on a tip-off, an investigating team comprising officials from the NIA, the Kanpur Police, the Reserve Bank of India and the Income Tax Department conducted raids in three hotels and a house under construction.
Sixteen people have been so far arrested, said Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Anand Kumar. “We were getting information that efforts are on to stack currency and exchange it in some manner,” Kumar told NDTV.
Several of the arrested people are from Lucknow, Mirzapur and Hyderabad. “The under-construction house belongs to businessman Anand Khatre who is among the arrested,” Assistant Superintendent of Police (Kanpur) Anurag Arya told The Indian Express. “Other arrested persons are collection agents of their areas and they claim to have come to Kanpur with old notes to exchange them with new notes.”
In August 2017, in its annual report, the RBI had said that as much as Rs 15.28 lakh crore had returned to the banking system on June 30 after demonetisation. The amount comprises more than 99% of the value of the currency that was scrapped in November, which was pegged at Rs 15.44 lakh crore.
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