As Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the government’s decision to scrap old Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes on November 8, there were several attempts to move cash and gold by air.
Data available with the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) show that around Rs. 29 crore in old notes was intercepted in the past 20 days at 59 airports spread across the country.
Maximum in Mumbai
The most interceptions were made at the Mumbai airport with Rs. 12.5 crore detected from November 9 to 27.
The Delhi airport was next with Rs. 6.2 crore detected, followed by the Kolkata airport — Rs. 5.9 crore.
Over Rs. 4 crore was detected from the remaining 56 airports manned by the Central Industrial Security Force.
A CISF official said the detections did not necessarily mean that it was illegal cash and in all cases, the information was passed on to the Income-Tax authorities.
“It would be incorrect to say that all cash was black money. Our duty is only to detect and report the matter to the I-T authorities. In some cases, the passengers produced documents to show the cash trail,” the CISF official said.
In the first week since the decision was announced, Rs. 5 crore was intercepted and another Rs. 24 crore seized in the following days till November 27.
“The question to ask is why movement of such large sums at airports showed a spike only after November 8. We never maintained data for such detections otherwise, as the amount was very small. Such huge cash hauls are unprecedented,” the official said.
Chartered trip
Last week, demonetised currency notes running to several crores were transported in a chartered jet from an airstrip in Hisar, Haryana, to Dimapur airport in Nagaland.
The I-T Department is investigating the case. Some Scheduled Tribes in different parts of northeastern States including Nagaland are exempted from income-tax and officials suspect that their accounts are being used to convert the old notes to legal tender to escape the tax net.
On the Union Finance Ministry’s request, the Home Ministry had written to all the police and security forces to keep a watch on movement of huge amounts of cash.
The government has claimed that the scrapping of old notes would hit the black money economy hard and curb terror financing and counterfeiting of banknotes.
Bullion seized
Huge quantities of gold and silver were also detected at the airports. Around 135 kg of gold and 5.5 kg of silver were intercepted.
“Here again, the maximum detection of 67 kg gold was made at the Mumbai airport, followed by the airport in Delhi with 15 kg,” the CISF official added.
