E-Paper
Absconding Army hawaldar arrested for cheating using fake notes
An absconding Indian Army hawaldar was arrested in Pune on Sunday for being in possession of false currency notes of demonetised denomination and using it to cheat people
An absconding Indian Army hawaldar was arrested in Pune on Sunday for being in possession of false currency notes of demonetised denomination and using it to cheat people.
The man was identified as Annasaheb Arjun Ghaytidak (36), a resident of Range Hills area of Khadki in Pune. The police are on a lookout for one other person identified as Nabab Ali, a resident of Sanjay Park, in the case.
A team of anti-dacoity and vehicle theft cell-2 raided Ghaytidak’s house to initially find 56 bundles of Indian currency notes. The first note in each bundle was the demonetised note of ₹1,000 followed by 99 notes of “Manoranjan Bank of India” printed on them. Similarly, 400 duplicate notes of ₹500 denomination were also found.
Upon checking the man’s vehicle, the police recovered six gunny bags full of such bundles. In those six gunny bags, the police found a total of 288 bundles of ₹1,000 notes.
The total worth of the face value of all the seized notes was found to be ₹24,35,440. The police also seized the arrested man’s vehicle, a Tata Safari, found to be worth ₹3 lakh.
The man was found to be a Hawaldar in the Indian Army who had been absconding from his post at 521 ASC Battalion in Guwahati, Assam since February 2020, according to the police.
The police had raided the place based on an anonymous information input but later found a witness called Santosh Ramchandra Raje (43), a resident of Satara who was duped of ₹4 lakh by the duo.
The duo had convinced Raje that they had demonetised notes of ₹1,000 worth 200 crore collected from non-resident Indians (NRI).
The duo had made Raje believe that the Reserve Bank of India was now exchanging notes collected from NRIs. The duo then promised a 5 per cent commission to whoever could get the new ₹2,000 notes for half of the money they made the victim believe that they had.
However, when Raje approached them to take up the job, they took ₹4 lakh from him as deposit. However, as Raje could not find a legitimate method of changing the money, he started asking for his deposit back but never got it.
A case under Sections 489(c), 420, and 34 of the Indian Penal Code along with Section 7 of the Specified Bank Notes Act 2017.
