Rs 18 lakh out of the total money seized from Maharaja Tailor in Chandigarh were in new Rs 2,000 notes.

Highlights Maharaja Tailor's premises were raided by Enforcement Directorate

More than half of the money seized is in the new 2,000 rupee notes

The man allegedly bought seized gold at a rate of Rs 44,000 per 10 grams

Rs 30 lakh in cash and two and a half kilograms of gold were seized from the premises of a prominent tailor in Chandigarh by the Enforcement Directorate as part of its operation to unearth illegal cash. Out of the seized cash Rs 18 lakh were in new Rs 2,000 notes, the rest were in 100- and 50-rupee notes.Acting on a tip off, the Enforcement Directorate investigators swooped down on the premises of Maharaja Tailor in Punjab's Mohali and at sector 22 in Chandigarh.After examining the bill books of the shop, the officials found that the owners of the tailoring shop had bought 2.5 kg gold at a rate of Rs 44,000 per 10 gram after demonetisation.The probe agency's investigators said that they were verifying how the notes were exchanged and who the owners of the shop bought the gold from.

The seizure comes three days after Enforcement Directorate officials recovered Rs 2.19 crore cash from a cloth merchant in Chandigarh. The Chandigarh Police had arrested a senior bank employee of a private bank in Mohali for allegedly providing new currency to cloth merchant Inderpal Mahajan on commission basis.Enforcement Directorate had seized Rs 2.19 crore including Rs 17.74 lakh in Rs 2,000 denomination, Rs 12,500 in Rs 500 denomination from the house of Mr Mahajan on December 14.