Hyderabad: North Zone Task Force police arrested nine persons in possession of old currency notes on Sunday and seized Rs 3.48 crore, a car, two bikes and nine cellphones from their possession.

According to police, the gang was trying to exchange the currency with agents while trying to cheat public by offering huge commissions.

The arrested were identified as P. Vijay VS Rao alias Vijay, 37, S.P. Chandrashekar Rao, 55, D. Vijaya Bhaskar Raju, 46, R. Venkat Rao, 29, G. Suresh Kumar, 54, M. Kumara Swamy, 27, V. Venkat Reddy, 30, Vinod Kumar, 26 and R.L. Srinivas, 52.

“Vijay Rao, Chandrasekhar and Vijay Bhaskar are family friends who possessed old currency notes of Rs 2.75 crores. The accused Vijay Rao collected demonetised currency from his friends Naveen, Venkates-war Rao, Satyanarayana, Nagaraju, Subrahmanyam and Ashok. They tried to exchange the notes with valid Indian currency notes on commission basis.

The group decided to merge the demonetised notes and exchange it with the valid currency on commission basis” said Deputy Commissioner of Police, Commissioner’s Task Force, B. Limba Reddy.

On Sunday, the individuals gathered near Yellareddyguda in S.R. Nagar with old currency and were trying to exchange it, Task Force Team apprehended them.