IT sleuths seize new notes worth Rs 85 lakh and Rs 76 lakh in Mumbai and Surat respectively

Chennai: New currency notes worth Rs 85 lakh and Rs 76 lakh were seized from Mumbai and Surat respectively on Friday by IT raids in two separate raids. Two persons were taken into custody for questioning by the Mumbai Police Crime Branch sleuths after the cash recovery in Dadar’s Hindu Colony. In Surat, four persons are being questioned. On Thursday, the IT department recovered at least Rs 106 crore cash, including Rs 10 crore in new currency, and 127 kgs of gold bars in searches at multiple locations in Chennai to check instances of tax evasion post demonetisation. In Chennai it is the largest seizure of new currency notes post demonetisation. The I-T operation had been launched yesterday here. "127 kg gold in 1 kg bars and 96 crore in old currency and Rs 10 crore in Rs 2,000 notes has been seized by the sleuths after the operation," top I-T department officials said. They said the I-T teams had launched operations on at least eight locations of a "syndicate" involved in currency conversion and recovered this huge amount. The officials said a number of documents related to financial transactions, entries of gold sale and records of sale/purchase have also been seized by the tax sleuths. At least three people of the alleged syndicate are being questioned while few others are under the radar, they said. The tax department had made the largest seizure of Rs 5.7 crore cash in new notes in Bengaluru few days back after which two other central probe agencies, the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate, had taken over the cases to probe instances of corruption, money laundering and large-scale hawala transactions in the wake of the currency scrap on November 8. (With additional information from PTI)