Seven middlemen have been arrested in Karnataka on Monday, by the Enforcement Department (ED.) An amount of Rs. 93 lakhs has been seized from them in new notes, unearthing a racket of illegal conversion of Demonetised notes to new notes.
These seven individuals were arrested and placed in custody under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA.) One of the accused, according to the officials, is a relative of a government official. The officials said that all the notes seized in new currency from them were Rs. 2000 notes.
The action was taken against them in relation with the recent raid by Income Tax department wherein they seized Rs. 5.7 crores in the new currency. In the case of Rs. 5.7 crore ED has booked money laundering case against the government engineer and the others that were involved based on FIR by the CBI department. The ED followed the leads from the case and arrested seven on Monday.
The Enforcement officials launched a special operation, wherein they posed as customers allegedly looking to exchange demonetised notes illegally and are ready to pay a commission. Through this, they unearthed the modus operandi of the alleged middlemen.
The officials also said that these accused middlemen were charging 15 to 35% commission and were handling the racket of illegal conversion of old demonetised notes to new currency by the assistance of Bank officers. The officials also said that they suspect there is a string of middlemen in converting black money into white.
The officials declared that the hunt for the string of middlemen is still on. The arrested are expected to be presented in a local court of Bengaluru for the next course of action.
