Kolkata businessman arrested for converting Rs 25 crore old currency

Kolkata: The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday arrested businessman Parsamal Lodha for converting over Rs 25 crore old currency into new.

The Enforcement Directorate earlier on December 1 raided multiple hawala operators across the country involved in illegal conversion of old currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 to valid legal tender since demonetisation on November 8.

The ED raided multiple locations in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Chennai among others based on intelligence gathered by the agency.

Two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced scrapping of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes to curb corruption and black money, the Income Tax department raided several hawala dealers and jewellers across the country for cutting barter deals with people to convert invalid currency notes into valid legal tender.