₹90 lakh in demonetised notes seized in Ahmedabad; two arrested

Nearly a decade after ₹500 and ₹1,000 currency notes were demonetised, an organised network involved in exchanging the banned notes for a commission is suspected to be operating across Gujarat and Maharashtra, police said after seizing demonetised currency worth ₹90 lakh in Ahmedabad.

Officials said some operators, particularly from Surat and Mumbai, are allegedly running a network to exchange such notes for a commission of 10 to 15%.

The Naroda police recently arrested two men after recovering demonetised ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes worth ₹90 lakh from their car near the Galaxy Cinema crossroads in Ahmedabad.

The arrested accused were identified as Anil Rabari, a resident of Krishnanagar in Ahmedabad, and Kushnpal Singh Sodha from Patan district. Two other suspects, identified as Laxman Desai and Jayesh Patel, managed to escape after allegedly alerting each other about the police presence.

The two men had brought the banned notes to Ahmedabad to exchange them through an angadia courier network. The notes were allegedly meant to be handed over to Jitendrasinh Rathod of Bijapur for further exchange.

However, as no one was willing to accept the notes, the accused were intercepted by police before they could return them, officials said.

Police later arrested Rathod and found that the notes had allegedly been sent by a textile trader, Jaybhai Shah, based in the Adajan area of Surat. Investigators believe Shah had arranged to send the notes to Ahmedabad for exchange, but the transaction failed after the accused were detained.

During interrogation, police learnt that Shah had come into contact with Rathod during the Covid-19 pandemic period in 2019–20, when certain avenues for depositing old notes were still available. The accused allegedly facilitated such exchanges and earned commissions of up to 15%.

Investigators said further details about the network, including who was to receive the currency in Ahmedabad and where it was meant to be exchanged, would become clear once the absconding accused are arrested.

Police also suspect that some of the banned notes may have been intended to be exchanged through channels linked to the Reserve Bank of India, although the exact mechanism remains under investigation.

Authorities said that despite demonetisation nearly 10 years ago, several cases involving banned currency continue to surface. In the past decade, demonetised notes worth crores of rupees have been seized in various operations across Gujarat.

Major seizures include ₹89 lakh in Ahmedabad’s Naroda area in March 2026, ₹78 lakh in Vadodara in August 2025, ₹1.90 crore on the Sanand–Bavla road in May 2025, ₹3.50 crore in Navsari in February 2019 and ₹42 lakh in Surat’s Udhna area in March 2017.

The ₹500 and ₹1,000 currency notes were demonetised on November 8, 2016, as part of the centre's move to curb black money and counterfeit currency. Police said investigations are continuing to trace the wider network allegedly involved in circulating and attempting to exchange the banned notes.