Bhubaneswar : The Income Tax (IT) Department and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) with a joint effort have conducted raids at two jewellery shops and seven foreign exchange service providers (FESP) here in the city on Friday.
With the alert of the FESP bodies providing foreign currency in exchange of the banned Rs 500 and Rs 1000, the government had asked the departments (IT & ED) to conduct raids. The IT officers conducted raids on Lalchand Jewellers and Khimji Jewellers at Bhubaneswar and Rourkela respectively. Similar raids were also conducted by the ED officers at various foreign exchange service providers in the city including, Thomas Cook at Ashok Nagar, Mentus and Wiezmann Forex at Kharvel Nagar, Mannapuram Finance and Credit Forex Service at Sahid Nagar, UAE Exchange Financial Service and LKP Forex at Jaydev Vihar. Police said some important official documents were recovered from the organizations during the raid.
Meanwhile, sources said it was found during the raid that the jewelers accepted the banned notes from the customers by issuing them pre-dated invoices.