As many as 16 people, including a noted builder, were arrested by police and demonetised currency worth ₹97 crore seized from his ancestral house at Swaroop Nagar in Kanpur.
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Akhilesh Kumar Meena said on Wednesday that ₹95 crore belonged to builder Anand Khatri and the remaining amount to over a dozen others.
This is the biggest seizure of banned currency since notes in the denominations of ₹500 and ₹1,000 were demonetised in November, 2016.
Mr. Akhilesh Kumar Meena said the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had gathered inputs about some companies and individuals involved in converting illegal currency into legal money and shared the information with Inspector General (IG) of Police, Kanpur, Alok Singh.
The IG collected more information about those running the racket and briefed the SSP, directing him to carry out raids discreetly. Following a tip-off, the SSP formed teams headed by SP (East) Anurag Arya and SP (West) Gaurav Grover. They nabbed four men from the Swaroop Nagar area.
Stored in gunny bags
Initially they tried to mislead the police but later, during intensive interrogation, broke down and confessed their crime, the SSP said. They divulged information about the builder. It was revealed that huge amount of demonetised currency was stored in gunny bags in the builder’s ancestral house near Gole Chauraha in Swaroop Nagar. Police later nabbed the builder, who led the team to the site where the currency was stashed, Mr. Arya told PTI .
Police also raided three hotels from where 11 people, including professor Santosh Yadav, were arrested, he said. Preliminary probe indicated that the cash was hidden with the intention of converting them into legal currency, the SP said, but discounted the possibility of any terror angle.
The arrested were identified Khatri, Santosh Yadav, key liasioner Mohit Dhingra, Sanjay Agarwal, Manish Agarwal - all residents of Kanpur, Koteshwar Rao from Andhra Pardesh, Sanjay Kumar from Varanasi, Anil Yadav from Saharanpur. Santosh Pathak and Sanjay Rai — both from Mirzapur, Ram Asrey, Dhirendra, Sanjeev Agarwal, Omkar Yadav, Ali Husain, and a woman from Andhar Pardesh whose identity was not immediately known.
