11 of a gang held for ‘exchanging’ scrapped notes

Greater Noida: Police claimed to have busted a gang involved in the exchange of demonetised currency notes in NCR, with the arrest of 11 people in Greater Noida on Saturday. However, five other members of the gang — including a cop believed to be the mastermind — are on the run, police said.
Those arrested have been identified as former GNIDA clerk Ravindra Kumar, Ramesh, Sachin, Sonu, Janak Raj, Manish, Deepak, Ramesh, Devendra and Vivek. Around Rs 4.55 lakh of banned currency notes have been seized from them, apart from two vehicles in which they were travelling. Their arrests came on a tip-off.
The DCP of zone 3 Rajesh Kumar Singh said that based on the tip-off, a police team first intercepted an SUV near Sector Omicron 1 and caught four men with some old notes.
“Later in the evening, we arrested four others while they travelling on a Skoda Rapid in the same area, based on inputs from those nabbed earlier in the day. Three others, including the former GNIDA clerk, were subsequently picked up from their homes,” he said.
During questioning, the police said that the accused told them that their job entailed collection of scrapped currency notes from different people in Delhi, Greater Noida, Noida, Ghaziabad and Bulandshahr and getting the same exchanged with new currency notes at a commission of 10-20% from those absconding.
“Those absconding have been identified as Sachin Bainsla, a constable posted at Sector Beta II police station, and Bijendra, Sardar, Gautam and Sudhansu, residents of Delhi. They used to replace the old notes with new ones. Efforts are being made to nab them,” the police officer said.
Police have booked the accused under Section 5/7 of The specified Notes (Abolition of Obligation) Act 2017 of the IPC. “They were sent to judicial custody by a court, while the absconding men have been put under electronic surveillance,” Singh said.