The police acted on a tip-off that old denominations were being exchanged for a 15% commission
Barely a month after the old notes were demonetised to tackle corruption, it seems to have found its groove again. Based on a tip-off, the Mumbai crime branch unit 5 on Friday seized Rs 85 lakh from Hindu Colony, Matunga and detained seven people.
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Following the tip-off about the presence of a large number of new notes in the area, the crime branch laid a trap and managed to seized Rs 72 lakh in the new Rs 2,000 notes, and Rs 13 lakh in Rs 100 notes, along with a Toyota Innova they were using to ferry the money in.
One of crime branch officers said, “Hiten Patel, one of the seven detained men, was working with Raksha Bullion at Zaveri Bazar. We got information that he exchanges the old denominations with the new denominations on a 15 per cent commission basis. So we sent out bogus customers who wanted to exchange his R1 crore in old denominations with the new notes.”
When contacted, Joint commissioner of police, crime, Sanjay Saxena told mid-day, “We had specific information about the money so our officers laid a trap and detained some people along side seizing Rs 85 lakh in cash. We have now called the income tax department for further investigation.”
Previous case
On December 2, the Mumbai Crime Branch unit had detained 7 persons with 9 kg gold worth Rs 2.25 crore and then looped in the Income Tax department for further probe. An officer from crime branch said, “As per the preliminary report by the Income Tax department in the Andheri case, the detained persons were found guilty as they were unable to provide proper bills and documents regarding the seized gold.”
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