A series of police raids led to the seizure of around Rs 60 lakh and the arrest of nine persons from various locations in and around Burrabazar in northwest Kolkata on Monday.
“One raid led to another and the arrests were made after the men could not explain the source of the cash. We are suspecting hawala links,” said an officer at Lalbazar.
An income tax official said there was no bar on carrying huge amounts of cash. “But one should be able to explain the source of the money with documents,” he said.
The first raid happened near a building on Amratala Street around 5pm. A man, identified by the police as Rajat Ash, was found with Rs 9,37,500 on him, said an officer.
Around 5.30pm, the cops intercepted another man, identified as Bijay Sharma. This time, they allegedly found Rs 10,00,000 on Sharma.
Ash is from Hooghly district and Sharma traces his roots to Rajasthan, said an officer of the detective department, a team from which conducted the raids. Both were arrested.
Sharma led the cops to an office on the fifth floor of a building at 8 Amratala Street. At the office, a man identified as Pradeep Chakraborty, a Sonarpur resident, was found in possession of Rs 12,41,000, the police said.
He, too, was arrested as he had allegedly failed to explain the source of the money.
Another team of sleuths intercepted a man, Kapil Charan Behera, on Mahatma Gandhi Road. He was allegedly found with Rs 12 lakh.
Behera led the cops to another office, on the second floor of 165 Rabindra Sarani. There, they found Rs 15,97,700.
Five men were arrested from the office. They were identified as Jhantu Naskar, Sandip Thakur, Mukesh Kumar, Chirag Prajapati and Gourav Kumar Prajapati.