Old notes racket: Seven members of gang arrested

The arrested persons, identified as Natarajan, Senthil Kumar, Krishnakumar, Prasanna, Rangarajan, Prakash and Mahalingam, all aged between 40 and 50, hail from Coimbatore.

Enquiries revealed that they worked as vegetable vendors and traders, but doubled up as agents for the exchange racket operated by a man fro Namakkal. They collected scrapped notes from people in Coimbatore and gave it to the leader of the gang for a commission.

On June 4, the gang members had visited Coimbatore for exchanging currencies but fled after a quarrel broke out as one of them threatened to inform police. The person was upset as he didn’t get his commission.

The incident came to light when the apartment staff opened their accommodation and found a bag of scrapped currencies. On receiving information, the Race Course police seized the notes. Police managed to trace the culprits with the help of CCTV footage and efforts are on to trace five other members of the gang, including the kingpin.