Rs. 30 lakh in cash and two and a half kilograms of gold were recovered from the premises of a prominent tailor in Chandigarh by the Enforcement Directorate as part of its operation to unearth illegal cash. Out of the seized cash Rs. 18 lakh were in new Rs. 2,000 notes, the rest were in 100- and 50-rupee notes.
Acting on a tip off, the ED investigators swooped down on the premises of Maharaja Tailor in Punjab’s Mohali and at sector 22 in Chandigarh.
After examining the bill books of the shop, the officials found that the owners of the tailoring shop had bought 2.5 kg gold at a rate of Rs. 44,000 per 10 gram after demonetisation.
The ED investigators said that they were verifying how the notes were exchanged and who the owners of the shop bought the gold from.
The seizure comes three days after ED officials recovered Rs. 2.19 crore cash from a cloth merchant in Chandigarh. The Chandigarh Police had arrested a senior bank employee of a private bank in Mohali for allegedly providing new currency to cloth merchant Inderpal Mahajan on commission basis.
ED had seized Rs. 2.19 crore including Rs. 17.74 lakh in Rs. 2,000 denomination, Rs. 12,500 in Rs. 500 denomination from the house of Mr Mahajan on 14 December.
(With inputs from PTI)