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Indian Tax Sleuths Unearth Beds of Banned Currency Notes at Businessman's House

According to the Specified Bank Notes (Cessation of Liabilities) Act passed by Parliament in Feb last year, holding more than 10 scrapped currency notes is punishable. The law was enacted with a view to eliminating the possibility of miscreants running a parallel economy using the old notes.
Sputnik

New Delhi (Sputnik) —Alarmed by the Narendra Modi government's crackdown on illegal wealth, a businessman in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh devised a novel way of hiding currency notes he had hoarded over the years.

When police raided real estate dealer Anand Khatri's Kanpur residence on Wednesday, they were shocked to discover beds made entirely of wads of currency notes, one after the other. The cash was in INR 500 and INR 1000 notes, which were demonetized by the government in November 2016. The investigation is on to ascertain why Khatri held on to the rupee bills that no longer enjoyed the status of money.

"We received information of the presence of demonetized currency worth crores at a person's residential premises in Kanpur. A raid was conducted by teams of the Reserve Bank of India and Income Tax department officials. We are interrogating the people involved," A.K. Meena, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) told ANI. 

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The authorities are also investigating the possibility of a money laundering racket. At least 16 other persons have been detained so far on suspicion of having offered help to Khatri for exchanging the banned notes for new ones, according to the police. 

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