Bank staff under CBI lens for illegal money exchange

It has been found that several private parties managed to exchange demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes for new ones in bulk with the connivance of bank officials. CBI-ACB has already booked two cases against bank staff, one in Bengaluru and another in Hyderabad, for helping individuals exchange demonetised currency for new notes in large quantities, thus violating the Government of India and RBI directives in this regard. 

Highly placed sources in CBI told DTNext that all high value seizures of new currency by their counterpart agencies are now being checked for the involvement of bank staff. The Income Tax department had seized new currency notes worth Rs 34 crore from sand mining businessman Sekhar Reddy in Chennai and Vellore. IT officials had pointed out at the alleged connivance of bank staff who could have facilitated the exchange of demonetised currency in large quantities for Reddy. “The Government of India and RBI had given clear instructions to banks regarding exchange of demonetised currency notes. 

However, we have observed that several individual black money holders greased the palms of bank officials and managed to exchange huge sums for new currency notes. This is a criminal offence and the accused could be booked under Sections 120 B r/w 420, 406 409 and 477 A of IPC and Sections 13 (2) r/w 13 (1) (c) and 13 (1) (d) of Prevention of Corruption Act,” a senior CBI official said. 

The CBI had picked up a case and booked the staff of SBI, SBM, Kotak Mahindra and ICICI after finding out that the staff had helped three persons to exchange old currency notes to the tune of Rs 5.76 crore to new notes in Bengaluru. 

“The Income Tax seizures in Chennai also point to the involvement of bank staff. We have sought details from the I-T department and we will be investigating the involvement of bank staff who helped Sekhar Reddy to exchange such huge sums,” the official added. 

CBI sources said that corrupt bank officials also added to the currency shortage for common man as huge amounts of new currency was diverted to individuals. Sources told DTNext that several bank officials took 10 to 20 per cent commission and exchanged notes in bulk. Many genuine customers of the bank were sent off without money saying that the banks have not received enough currency for circulation.