Ten members belonging to different gangs who were planning to exchange demonetised Turkish currency in the city were arrested by the S.R. Nagar police on Monday. The police seized 300 Turkish currency notes from them.
The accused persons belonging to Karimnagar gang, Rajamundry gang and Guntur gang bought demonetised currency notes that were withdrawn in 2003. In 2003, the value of the notes exchanged was Rs. 440 crore.
Turkish currency
“The gang was in possession of 200 currency notes of 500,000 Turkish Lira and 100 currency notes of 1,000,000 Turkish Lira. In 2003, the Turkish government passed a law that allowed the removal of six zeroes from the currency and introduce a new currency lira. The new currency was introduced in 2005 and the old withdrawn from the market.
The accused persons somehow got the demonetised currency notes from some sources and were planning to exchange it,” DCP (west) A Venkateshwara Rao said.
The gang planned to sell the demonetised currency notes for Rs. 80 lakh saying that the money it exchanged with the Foreign Exchange Banks could fetch them Rs. 440 crore. On a tip-off, the police caught them at S.R. Nagar.
In a separate instance, the Cyberabad Commissioner’s Special Operation Team (Malkajgiri) also caught a seven-member gang while trying to exchange demonetised Turkish currency. The police seized 198 currency notes from them.
The accused planned to exchange the demonetised currency and were trying to lure a few persons saying that it could fetch them Rs. 10 crore. On a tip-off, the police caught seven members of the gang while one accused Anil Kumar is absconding. Seven mobile phones were also seized from them.
