Realtors held with 1.13 cr old currency

Hyderabad: The Task Force officials apprehended two persons involved in real estate, including a woman, who were in possession of demonetised currency notes (Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denominations) worth Rs 1.13 crore. They were exchanging currency notes in Shanbagh hotel at Punjagutta, the officials said on Thursday.

According to Task Force officials, they raided the hotel on a tip-off on August 16 and apprehended Manjula R Joshi (37) resident of Visakhapatnam and native of Gulbarga, Karnataka and K Naga Venkata Gowri Shankar Gupta (48) resident of Machilipatnam, AP. The arrested were engaged in real estate business.

Modus operandi
The accused Manjula R Joshi a native Gulbarga, along with her family members shifted to Hyderabad in 2013. After completion of her son’s intermediate, she shifted to Visakhapatnam and began real estate business there.

Earlier, she had collected old currency notes from her village, near Gulbarga on 50 per cent commission basis. After collection of old currency notes, she came to Hyderabad along and handed the notes to her friends on 30 per cent commission basis.

Her friends agreed to exchange old currency notes in Hyderabad through agents on commission basis. From November 2016, she had been exchanging the old currency notes through agents and made huge money. Later, she contacted her friend Gowri Sankara Gupta and informed him that she is possession of old currency notes worth Rs 1,12,75,000 and requested to exchange the same to new currency notes on commission basis. Gowri Sankara Gupta agreed and asked her to come to Hyderabad along with old currency notes.

“As per their plan on August 16, she visited Punjagutta along with the old currency notes and tried to exchange the demonetised currency in the hotel room. We apprehended the accused persons along with demonetised currency notes,” said B Limba Reddy, DCP, Task Force.

The accused along with the seized currency were handed over to Punjagutta Police Station for further investigation.