Three held for trying to exchange demonitised notes

Three men were arrested on Thursday for allegedly trying to exchange the scrapped notes worth Rs 44.48 lakh in Hyderabad

Hyderabad, Mar 16: Three persons were arrested from here for allegedly trying to exchange demonetised notes with face value of Rs 44.48 lakh with new ones, police said on Thursday. Based on a tip off, sleuths of Commissioner's Task Force, West Zone Team, nabbed three accused persons near a community hall in S R Nagar on Wednesday who had procured the old currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denominations and were allegedly trying to exchange the same with new currency notes with some unknown persons, a release from Hyderabad Police said.

The arrested accused were identified as P Sridhar, D Srinivasa Rao (both into marketing job) and K Krishna Reddy (a businessman), all childhood friends and belonging to different cities in Andhra Pradesh, it said. Sridhar's friend Shankar, from Vijayawada, informed him that his friend by name Satyanarayana, is having old currency notes of Rs 44,48,500 and wanted to exchange it with new currency notes and in turn he will pay some amount as commission. "For which he (Sridhar) agreed to exchange old currency notes in Hyderabad," Police said.

Sridhar also informed to Srinivasa Rao and Krishna Reddy and asked them to join with him for exchange of old currency. After taking the demonetised currency, the trio came in a car and were trying to exchange old notes to some unknown persons.

In the meantime, a police team apprehended them along with demonetised old currency notes, the release added. Hyderabad Police have arrested as many as 21 persons from different parts of the city since March 13 in separate cases and seized demonetised notes having face value of Rs 2.4 crore, when they allegedly tried to exchange the scrapped notes with new ones.

On March 14, police had also arrested a "mentally disturbed" man, while he allegedly tried to deposit fake notes having face value of Rs 9.91 lakh that had "Children Bank of India" printed on them at a PSU Bank.

In another case, two local businessmen were on Wednesday arrested and fake notes having a face value of Rs 6.20 lakh in denomination of Rs 2,000 were seized from them.

PTI