TIRUCHY/ ERODE : Over Rs 70 lakh in new currency notes was seized during vehicle checks in Thanjavur and Erode.
In the first incident, the Orathanadu police seized new Rs 2,000 notes amounting to Rs 35.40 lakh from a city-based hotelier on Friday night. According to sources, police received a tip-off about cash allegedly exchanged for demonetised notes being transported in a Sports Utility Vehicle.
Following this, a team headed by DSP Sengamala Kannan launched a vehicle check near the Orathandu bus stand when they noticed a luxury car moving under suspicious circumstances. On intercepting the vehicle and inspecting, police found Rs 35.4 lakh in new Rs 2,000 notes stacked in several bags.
Sources said there were five occupants in the car, including a businessman, who runs a popular chain of hotels in Tiruchy. Upon finding the huge pile of cash, police alerted Income Tax sleuths and handed over the cash, car and gang to the officials.
Though the five claimed they were heading to Orathanadu with Rs 35.4 lakh to buy a property, IT sleuths are enquiring as to how they managed such a huge amount post demonetisation and that too all in new Rs 2,000 notes. The officials also reportedly carried out searches at the house of the businessman in KK Nagar on Saturday.
Meanwhile, in Erode, the Gobi police on Saturday arrested four persons, who had Rs 36.90 lakh in new Rs 2,000 notes, during a vehicle inspection on the Gobi-Modachur road.
The four men – Sakthivel (37), hailing from of Alandurai, Coimbatore, and Manoj (36), Suresh (27) and Sabari (35), residents of Pollachi, were travelling in two cars.
When police inspected the vehicles, they found bundles of the new notes. As the four occupants of the cars gave contradictory replies, the police interrogated them and found that they were exchanging old notes for a commission. They had already conducted many such transactions. They had obtained the new notes from a bank in Pollachi.
Later, Coimbatore IT officials took them for questioning.