In one day, more than Rs 2.5 crore seized by cops & ED from 3 different parts of the country

New Delhi: At a time when common man is struggling to take out Rs 2500 from ATMs, incidents are being reported from different parts of the country in which people are bring caught with lakhs of new currency notes. On Monday, three such incidents were reported from Guwahati, Ambala and Bengaluru. In the first two, police nabbed the culprits and in the third one ED arrested seven alleged middlemen. The total money seized is more than Rs 2.5 crore. In Guwahati district of Assam police on Monday raided a local businessman's house here and seized about Rs 1.55 crore in new Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 currency notes. Additional Director General of Police (CID) Anil Kumar Jha said that a CID team acting on a tip-off seized the money from the house of Hardie Singh Bedi, who owns a hotel and bar an runs shop rental business in the city. He said during the operation at the house in Beltola area of the city, the police seized Rs 1,54,81,000 crore cash in new currency notes that were unveiled after demonetisation. "Out of the total amount, Rs 1,54,06,000 was in Rs 2,000 notes, while the remaining Rs 75,000 was in new Rs 500 notes," Jha said. The police have handed over the case to income tax department and its deputy commissioner P Borah is carrying out further investigation, the senior police official added. Likewise in Ambala, Railway police on Monday recovered Rs 4.49 lakh, including more than half of the amount in new Rs 2000 denomination notes, from two persons at the Ambala Cantt railway station here. The two persons, reportedly from Ghaziabad, were travelling in a Amritsar-bound train, when they were intercepted by the Railway police this evening, officials said, adding that Rs 4.49 lakh were recovered from them. The police were questioning the duo, who claimed to deal in vegetable business. The recovered currency also included 132 new notes of denomination of Rs 2000, police said. The Railway police has also informed the matter to the Income Tax department. In another incident, from Bengaluru, unearthing a racket involved in illegal conversion of demonetised notes, the ED has arrested seven alleged middlemen and seized Rs 93 lakh in new currency in Karnataka as part of its money laundering probe. Officials said the agency placed the seven, including the relative of a government official, under arrest on Monday under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Rs 93 lakh in new notes of Rs 2000 have been seized in the case, they added. Officials said the action was taken as part of a probe in a case where the Income Tax department had recently seized Rs 5.7 crore cash in new currency and the Enforcement Directorate had booked a money laundering case against a government engineer and others based on a CBI FIR in the case. The modus operandi adopted by the alleged middlemen, officials said, was unearthed after ED officials launched a special operation and themselves posed as 'customers' looking to get old currency changed illegally, after paying commission to the said middlemen. Officials said the probe by the agency found that these alleged middlemen were reportedly charging a commission between 15-35 per cent and were executing the racket of illegal conversion of new notes in alleged connivance with bank officials. They said the agency suspects that there is a chain of middlemen involved in converting black funds into white even as they added that the probe in continuing. The accused are expected to be produced in a local court here for further custody.