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Bengaluru: The Halasuru Gate police have arrested 10 people who submitted altered Rs 2,000 notes to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which they acquired by cheating the public in the guise of performing a “money multiplying ritual”.
The arrested are Mohan K, Shreenivasa Murthy, Raju, Basavaraj, Munishamappa, Mallikarjun, Ramakrishna, Pally Muralidhar, Ramachandra and Mubarak. They were arrested from different parts of Bengaluru and Andhra Pradesh.
On October 17, the manager of RBI had filed a complaint at the Halasuru Gate station that Rs 2,000 denomination notes that had already been withdrawn from circulation were altered by changing their serial numbers and submitted to the RBI.
During the investigation, the police found the persons who had deposited the altered cash. Upon interrogation, it was revealed that the suspect had deposited Rs 40,000 at the bank and claimed that he had received the money from two acquaintances for a commission.
Police then arrested two others, who revealed that they had received Rs 8 lakh in Rs 2,000 notes from others known to them, to be deposited with the RBI, and had transferred the equivalent amount to their accounts. Police further arrested three others in the case.
“During interrogation, they confessed that they had cheated the public by falsely claiming that if they performed a special ritual (“pooja”) using Rs 2,000 notes (except the “O”, “OO”, “OP”, and “OU” series printed in 2018 with consecutive serial numbers withdrawn from circulation), it would multiply the money a hundredfold and cause a “rain of money.” By convincing people of this fraudulent ritual, they collected withdrawn Rs 2,000 notes from the public,” the police said in a statement.
Further, police arrested three more people from Andhra Pradesh who had fallen prey to the scam. “They confessed to being involved in the offence, and Rs 6 lakh worth of Rs 2,000 denomination notes were seized from them. All the accused provided information about the person who altered the serial numbers, note series, and printed year on the notes as per their requests,” the police said.
Subsequently, another suspect was arrested from his house in Yeshwantpur, and police recovered Rs 6 lakh worth of Rs 2,000 denomination notes and seized the equipment used for modifying the note details.
“In total, Rs 18 lakh worth of Rs 2,000 denomination notes were seized in this case. On November 3, all 10 accused involved in the case were produced before the court, which remanded them to judicial custody. One female accused is still absconding, and efforts are underway to trace her,” the police said in the statement.