Police in Andhra Pradesh's West Godavari district seized Rs 4.76 crore cash being carried without any valid documents from a private bus on Friday, April 1. During the routine checking of vehicles at Veeravalli toll plaza in Nallajerla mandal, police found the huge amount of cash in the luggage carrier under a seat of a bus belonging to a private travel operator. The bus was heading to Guntur from Vizianagaram. The police also recovered 350 grams of gold along with the cash.
Police detained seven passengers and driver and cleaner of the bus for questioning. The passengers, who were carrying the cash and gold, could not produce documents for the same.
This comes close on the heels of a similar huge cash seizure in Kurnool district. The Special Enforcement Bureau (SEB) had confiscated Rs 1.25 crore cash from a private travels bus at Panchalingala on the border between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on March 24. The person, who was carrying the cash from Hyderabad to Rajampet in Kadapa district, was detained.
At the same checkpost, SEB sleuths had seized gold, silver and cash worth Rs 5 crore from five passengers travelling by a private bus on March 6. The SEB recovered 8.250 kg gold, 28.5 kg silver and cash from the passengers belonging to Tamil Nadu.
In January 2020, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) Nellore unit nabbed three men travelling on a train from Chennai to Warangal at the Vijayawada railway station, who were found carrying gold bars in packets concealed in bags. They told the police that they had carried cash to Chennai, where they purchased smuggled foreign-origin gold, and were travelling back to Warangal to hand the metal over to a smuggling kingpin, according to the DRI. The seized gold weighed 7,228 gm and was valued at Rs 3.05 crore.