The Crime Branch Unit III has seized old currency notes of denomination ₹1,000 amounting to ₹85 lakh from 10 people in Vashi. Acting on a tip-off, the police team laid a trap near Vashi flyover at Sion-Panvel highway.
Police Inspector Vijay Kadbane said, “We saw a person with two bags signalling to people in a car nearby. Later, we saw four other people speaking to the person with the bags. In the car, there were two women and three men. We nabbed all 10 and found that the bags had ₹85 lakh in demonetised currency notes.”
The police suspect that the 10 accused planned to exchange the old notes with new ones and earn commission from it. The accused belonged to Ghatkopar, Chembur, Kamothe, Vikhroli, Bhandup, Dharavi and Malad. The person who came with the bags has been identified as Shafik Shirtaj Khan (39), a real estate agent from Ghatkopar.
Mr. Kadbane said, “In such cases, we cannot directly arrest people. We need the court’s permission to investigate the case. We applied for the permission on Friday and are awaiting orders. Once we get the order, we will approach the Reserve Bank of India to verify if the notes are original. We will then seek the custody of the 10 people.”
He said prima facie the notes seem to be original. “How much money belongs to whom is not known as none of them are willing to speak up. Once we secure their custody, we can interrogate them and find out the source of the money and what they planned to do with it,” Mr. Kadbane said.
The RBI’s annual report for 2017-18 revealed that 99.3% of currency notes that were demonetised on November 8, 2016 have returned to the banking system. This is only marginally higher than its provisional estimate last year that over 99% — or ₹15.28 lakh crore worth of the old ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes — out of the ₹15.44 lakh crore that were in circulation at the time had been deposited by June 30, 2017.