VIJAYAWADA: Police nabbed several black money hoarders and agents for attempting to exchange a whopping Rs 2 crore in four seperate incidents in Guntur, Krishna and West Godavari districts since Thursday evening.
Both the old currency and the new currency meant for exchange has been seized in all four cases, and the Crime Investigation Department took up the case involving Rs 1.4 crore worth old notes.
Sources said that G Harish of Tirupati is operating a petrol pump each in Tirupati and Visakhapatnam. One Muralikrishna Reddy from Mitturu in Chittoor district, met him a few days ago and convinced him to exchange his old notes for the new Rs 2,000 denomination notes, on payment of 30 per cent commission.
Two days ago, Harish paid Rs 1.4 crore worth demonetised currency to Muralikrishna Reddy and two others in exchange for new notes. Later, he discovered that the bundles of currency were only white papers and newspapers with the new Rs 2,000 notes on both sides.
Harish reportedly decided to go to Visakhapatnam to dispose off the papers, but decided to lodge a complaint with the police and on his way to Visakhapatnam, he approached the Chilakaluripeta police on Thursday stating that Muralikrishna Reddy cheated him to the tune of Rs 1.4 crore after borrowing money.
However, the police got suspicious and obtained complete information during investigation. Immediately, they arrested Harish and picked up Muralikrishna Reddy and two others on Thursday night. They reportedly seized Rs 1.17 crore till Friday morning.
Soon after the higher authorities learnt about the incident and handed over the case to the Crime Investigation Department. Harish, Muralikrishna Reddy and two others have been reportedly taken into custody for further investigation.
In another case, the One Town police in Eluru raided an apartment near BSNL office on Thursday late night and arrested six persons who were indulged in exchange of old notes with the new currency worth Rs 19 lakh.
The police acted on a tip off and trapped a trader Yalabaka Krishna, Gampa Kishore and Narni Anil Kumar of Eluru who were exchanging the old notes for new currency. "Our constable posed as a trader and approached the accused through Lingamsetti Peddiraju of Ganapavaram, Nokkeri Anil Kumar, Sheriff Zabiullah of Eluru, who exchanged their old currency earlier. After confirming that all the accused were at the flat, we raided and nabbed them along with the cash," One Town circle inspector of police N Rajasekhar said. Police said that the accused are in possession of new currency notes of Rs.2,000 in nine bundles and Rs100 in 12 bundles.
In a seperate case, the Tadepalligudem police arrested one T Gopikrishna at Jayalakshmi theatre in Tadepalligudem and found that he was in possession of Rs 3.6 lakh of new currency and was trying to exchange the currency for old denomination notes on payment of a 12 per cent commission. In Vijayawada, two persons nabbed and seized Rs 31 lakhs cash by the city task force for trying to exchange new currency notes to old currency at RTC bus station in Vijayawada on Friday.
G Vamsi Krishna, dish antenna dealer for Samsung company in city, native of Thullur and M Naga Venkata Samuel an LIC agent, native of Ponnuru are trying to exchange currency at a ratio of one lakh for 12 lakhs. They are carrying Rs 31 lakhs with Rs 2000 denominations.
According to Assistant commissioner of police fir city task force, P Muralidhar Rao, two culprits with an intention to make out easy money by acquiring commission through exchange, they had committied such activity. He also said that another local fiancier Kiran Kumar, relative of Sumuel also involved in this and he had been taken into custody for investigation.
All three accused were shifted to Krishna Lanka police station also informed to the Inome Tax department.