In a major breakthrough on Sunday, the Sambalpur police unearthed an unholy racket which was converting the scrapped currency notes to new ones.
The police seized banned notes of Rs1,000 and Rs500 denominations worth Rs1, 42, 91, 500 and arrested eight persons from Sonapali road near the Government Women’s College here. Interestingly, one of the arrested persons Rashmi Ranjan Routray is a staff of the local branch of the SBI. And, his brother Pankaj Routray is also a partner in crime.
On a tipoff, police came to know about the illegal transaction and kept close watch on the gang and a particular car and finally caught hold of them with the cash.
“At the same time, we also seized the car, two pistols and five live cartridges from their possession,” informed Sambalpur SP Akhileswar Singh to mediapersons here.
From the preliminary investigation, it is known that the cash belongs to a country liquor manufacturer Jeyakat Alli.
“With help of two brokers, Kapil Jhajaria and Ravi Trivedy, and a banker and his brother, the country liquor manufacturer had converted his black money to new notes of Rs2,000 denominations,” the SP said.
The police also seized new Rs2,000 notes of Rs85, 62, 000, the SP informed.
“During interrogation of the arrested persons, they revealed involvement of a few more persons and we are searching for them,” the SP added.
Since a huge amount of new notes have been seized, the involvement of bank employees is confirmed, the SP said further, adding that Maoist angle of the incident is also under scanner.
Notably, from the very beginning since demonetisation, it was suspected in Sambalpur area that bankers, CAs, tax practitioners and income tax officials were playing a dubious role in notes swapping. The case has confirmed it. Further, many people are also negotiating
with agents and Hawala traders for exchange of the scrapped notes. It is further alleged that many senior officials in the Income Tax Department are not receiving phone calls from public who want to share vital information on black money.