Two RBI officials arrested for illegal currency conversion

     Written by : IANS | Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 09:57 PM

Two RBI officials arrested for illegal currency conversion

Bengaluru, Dec 17 : The CBI has arrested two Reserve Bank of India (RBI) officials in Bengaluru allegedly involved in an illegal exchange of nearly Rs 2 crore in spiked currency notes, officials said on Saturday.

A CBI official said a senior special assistant and a special assistant of the RBI's cash department were held after they were found exchanging scrapped banknotes with Rs 100 and new Rs 2,000 bills. This was being done in violation of exchange limits imposed by the central bank.

The accused had given away new notes amounting to Rs 1.99 crore to some people, the official said.

The Central Bureau of Investigation suspects that more people, including some RBI officials, may be involved in the criminal conspiracy.

Criminal charges have been slapped against the accused, who were taken into four day custody of the premier probe agency.

The agency had earlier arrested a senior RBI official for allegedly laundering money running into millions of rupees.

The arrest was made after the CBI on December 6 registered a case against a senior cashier for allegedly laundering Rs 1.51 crore of new currency in exchange for old currency after the government demonetised those on November 8.