Express News Service By

HYDERABAD: The city police on Monday busted two gangs and arrested 16 persons involved in circulating ‘outdated’ Turkish currency with a face value of Rs 10 crore.

In SR Nagar limits, police nabbed 10 persons who were trying to dispose the outdated currency notes. Similarly, the Special Operation Team (SOT) of Cyberabad police nabbed seven persons including a pastor for circulating outdated Turkish Liras. Police seized 198 Liras each of denomination 5,00,000 from them.

The gangs tried to circulate the Turkish Lira currency notes and coins belonging to pre-2005 series, which are no longer in circulation and are not accepted as a new series of Lira notes which was introduced on January 1, 2009, police said. The accused collected the Turkish currency from one Anil Kumar and gathered at the residence of Krishna Mohan, a pastor at Baptist church, Jyothi Nagar, Malkajgiri.

“The accused illegally secured the outdated Lira currency with the help of middlemen and tried to exchange the same,” the police said.

Accused held by Cyberabad SOT

Thothed Roop Chand, P Satya Kumar, K Ranjeeth Kumar, T Srinivas Rao, V Krishna Mohan, U Veera Venkat Subramanyam, Chintakuntla Venkata Chalapathi Reddy. Key accused Anil Kumar is absconding.