ED arrests Kolkata businessman for converting Rs 25 crore to new notes

While the whole nation is queuing up in front of banks and ATMs to get their hands on new currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000, a Kolkata-based businessman has been arrested for alleged conversion of over Rs 25 crore old currerncy to new bank notes. The arrest was done by the Enforcement Directorate.

The businessman has been identified as Paras M Lodha and the agency said Lodha was first intercepted by officials at the Mumbai airport, based on a look out circular, while he was reportedly trying to fly out.

The agency arrested him "in connection with conversion of more than Rs 25 crore of old notes to new notes in Shekhar Reddy and Rohit Tandon cases."

Now the ED will produce Lodha in court so as to obtain his further custody under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

While the Reddy case pertains to Chennai where the Income Tax department has made the biggest detection of unaccounted income of over Rs 142 crore, the Delhi Police and the I-T seized Rs 13.5 crore from a law firm here. The firm belongs to lawyer Rohit Tandon.

Officials said the multiple agencies working on these two high-profile cases, involving high ranking individuals, are joining dots of the investigations to prepare a water tight case against those who have either hoarded or generated black funds in the wake of the currency scrap of November 8 by the government.