The Coimbatore rural police booked four persons, including a DMK functionary, for allegedly running a scam with demonetised currency notes in the city. As per reports, the issue came to light after the central intelligence unit conducted searches on a bungalow at Bommanampalayam on Saturday night.
The house, where the searches were conducted, reportedly belongs to Anand, the son of G Elango, the former DMK MLA of Avinashi constituency. Rasheed lives and runs a firm in the house. The searches started on Saturday night and went on till around 4 am on Sunday morning. However, none of the men accused in the case was present at the time of the search.
The team, led by Coimbatore Superintendent of Police (SP) Sujith Kumar and Deputy SP Velmurugan, seized bundles of demonetised currency notes of Rs 1,000 denomination. However, it was then discovered that only the top most notes in all the bundles were demonetised currency. The remaining ‘notes’ were just newspaper cuttings made to appear like currencies.
The officials seized around 268 demonetised currency notes, 667 bundles of newspapers cut to the size of currency notes, a stapling machine, a counting machine and an air gun from a secret room in the bungalow.
According to the police, the gang was running an investment scheme and trying to sell the dressed up note bundles claiming that when the government at the Centre changes, the demonetised currency will be reinstated. Based on the seizure, the police booked four men — Anandan, Rasheed and their associates Farose and Sheq.
They were booked under sections 109 (punishment of abetment if the act abetted is committed in consequence and where no express provision is made for its punishment), 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating), 489 (b) (using as genuine, forged or counterfeit currency notes or bank-notes), of the Indian Penal Code and section 7 read with section 5 of the Specified Bank Notes (Cessation of Liabilities) Act, 2017.