Belagavi police have seized demonetised currency with a face value of ₹3.1 crore and arrested six persons.
Acting on a tip-off, City Crime Branch officers raided Rohan Residency, a hotel, on Monday night and arrested the kingpin Anil Jayantilal Patel of Gujarat, who had asked five others to get the old notes promising of converting them into new notes.
The other five arrested have been identified as Arvind Pundalik Talavar, 33, of Goa, Suhas Ashok Patil, 31, of Pune, Rama Bhairu Patil, 29, of Halga-Bastwad in Belagavi, Saddam Susain Shaikh, 28, of Miraj in Maharashtra, and Abudlnasir Mohammadbasha, 52, of Bhatkal in Uttara Kannada. Deputy Commissioner of Police Seema Latkar told presspersons that Anil, currently residing in Mahantesh Nagar, Belagavi, was running a furniture business. He claimed to have links with RBI officials and asked others to scout for old notes.
All the accused reached Belagavi on Monday morning and stayed in the hotel from where they were arrested.
Ms. Latkar congratulated the team led by B.R. Gaddekar that conducted the raid. DCP (Crime) Amarnath Reddy said most of the notes were in old ₹500 denomination and the remaining in ₹1,000 denomination. He said investigations would reveal if the accused really had links with banks officials or were falsely claiming so.
