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Banned notes :Senior RBI official and hawala operator arrested in Bengaluru

by India Blooms News Service 13 Dec 2016, 08:56 am

Bengaluru, Dec 13 (IBNS) : A senior Reserve Bank of India official and an alleged big time hawala operator were arrested in separate raids in Bengaluru on Tuesday in connection with conversion of banned notes,reports said.

K Micheal, a senior special assistant with the RBI Bengaluru and K V Veerendra, the hawala operator, were arrested by CBI after seven other people were nabbed by the Enforcement Directorate for money laundering on Monday.

According to reports, Michael  was allegedly involved in helping convert black or untaxed money. More than Rs. 1.50 crores was involved in one case.

Veerendra, who is said to be the owner of a casino in Goa, was arrested with  Rs 5.70 crore of new currency notes of Rs 2000 denomination seized from his premises.

CBI also managed to secure Veerendra's remand for six days after he was produced in a court.

The agency hopes to proceed further in its investigation on the basis of certain revelations Veerendra made during preliminary probe.

On Monday, currencies  worth Rs 93 lakh in new notes were found when the ED  sleuths in Bengaluru arrested about seven people for laundering black money.  

The ED raid is likely to expose the nexus between bank officials and money laundering touts, said reports.

Reports said the touts were charging  upto 35 per cent commission to convert old notes which were rendered useless after the 500 and 1000 note currency ban by the union government to flush out black money from the economy.
 
The ED has been conducting nationwide raids to unearth such money laundering rackets.