In an attempt to curtail the shadow economy and crack down on the use of illicit and counterfeit cash to fund illegal activity and terrorism, the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, on 8th November 2016, announced the demonetization of all old Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 banknotes. In an unscheduled live televised, PM Modi declared that use of all 500 and 1000 banknotes of the Mahatma Gandhi Series would be invalid past midnight.
Though these notes went immediately out of circulation, in the following months, news of discarded or destroyed black money kept surfacing, what is shocking is that now, almost two years from then, Pune police have arrested five people including a Congress councilor from Ahmednagar, Maharashtra involved in banned currency exchange and has seized the banned currencies worth about 3.5 crores.
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The other four, apart from the Congress councillor, arrested are Vijay Shinde, Aditya Ghavan, Navnath Bhandagale and a resident of Satara, named Suraj Jagtap have been taken into custody. According to the Rocks Police Station of Pune, Congress councillors of Sangamner Nagar Parishad were allegedly involved in the exchange of notes and took them into police custody last night.
The arrests occurred during an attempt to exchange swaps of notes that went out of circulation in Peth area on Sunday. This action was taken on the basis of a tip-off received by the police. At present, the police are finding out who they wanted to exchange these notes with.