Bengaluru: 61-year-old woman caught trying to exchange scrapped notes

Bengaluru: A sexagenarian woman, who was trying to exchange scrapped currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination on a commission basis, was arrested by the Girinagar police.

The accused, who operates a travel agency in the city, has been identified as a 61-year-old Krishnakumari, a resident of Malleswaram. The police have recovered Rs 26.54 lakh from her. The arrest was made based on a tipoff to the police by the public. Krishnakumari was talking to another woman near Vivekananda Park on exchanging the scrapped currency when a passerby heard their conversation and informed the police. The police rushed to the spot and arrested Krishnakumari. The police, however, couldn’t find the other woman, who they said had committed to exchange Krishnakumari’s currency notes on a 50 percent commission.

The police said the accused had collected the scrapped notes from her customers and others to get them exchanged on a commission basis. She also found the agent to get the task done. Krishnakumari claimed she was not in the country in November and December and couldn’t get time to exchange the notes. She claimed to have visited the RBI to exchange the notes, but the officials refused.

The accused has been booked under Sections 5 and 7 of the Specified Bank Notes (Cessation of Liabilities) Act, 2017, according to which possessing scrapped notes is a punishable offence with fines up to Rs 10,000 or five times the amount of the face value of the specified bank notes involved in the contravention, whichever is higher. Police are on a lookout for the agent involved in the case.