Demonetisation: Traders selling dollar at 110 against official rate of 67/$

Apart from gold purchases, other methods of laundering black money hoarded in the banned notes are also flourishing.

Some chartered accountants are using their smaller clients to launder their larger clients money. Up to 35-40% premiums are quoted for such entries by CAs.

Some players have used daily wage earners to exchange Rs 4,000 and in return they were given more than their daily wages.

In cities such as Surat and Ahmedabad, workers made Rs 600-1,000 for each exchange of Rs 4,000.  Reports of very long queues outside banks also include such persons, said a Gujarat-based trader.

While the hawala market or unofficial foreign currency market has come to a virtual standstill, some dealers have sold dollars between Rs 85 and Rs 110 against the official rate of around Rs 67 per dollar.

In Mumbai, a senior marketing executive at an event management company that organises large weddings has witnessed the scramble, and said his firm was debating whether to accept payment in the old money.

Like many others, he was unwilling to be quoted by name when discussing his customers' requests.

"It has been a stressful day. Wedding clients are going mad," he said this week. "One client called and said 'I'll give you 30 million rupees ($450,000) in (old) 1,000 rupee notes.' There is loads of black money."

That amount is not unusual for a wealthy Indian family's wedding celebrations.

Others are looking to line up friends, domestic staff, and even senior citizens who are prepared to legally exchange the cash in small enough chunks to avoid scrutiny from banks.

Simply stepping forward and declaring the money is not an appealing option for tax dodgers, as banks have to report to tax authorities anybody depositing over 250,000 rupees ($3,765).

Being found to be holding undeclared cash can lead to a penalty of 200 percent of the tax owed.

TRAIN TICKETS

Other unusual methods of exchanging cash are appearing on social media.

One tweet described how people were paying agents for expensive first-class train tickets with old bills and then cancelling them later to get reimbursed in new notes, all in order to get around the tax man.

State-run Indian Railways was one of the few places still allowed to accept the old notes until Friday.

Anil Kumar Saxena, spokesman for Indian Railways, said ticket purchases for first class, air-conditioned compartments, the most expensive category, had surged.

"We usually sell about 2,000 tickets every day," he said. The day after the demonetization measures were announced, that rose to 27,000, Saxena added.

Officials have caught on to some schemes.

The railways will refund tickets worth over 10,000 rupees booked on November 9, 10, and 11, but not in cash.

"It will be done by cheque, or electronically," Saxena said.

A jeweller in Mumbai said he stopped accepting cash payments after someone he believed to be a revenue official lingered outside his shop.

Jewellers stayed open into the early hours of Wednesday, and one well-placed industry source in Mumbai estimated that about 250 kg of gold, worth an estimated 750 million rupees at spot prices, was sold in the city within a few hours of the ban.

The source said jewellers were paid anywhere between 20 and 65 percent above the going rate by buyers snapping up the precious metal with old notes.

Meenakshi Goswami, Commissioner of Income Tax, underlined how hard it was for the authorities to detect such activity.

"I'm not aware of anything going on," she told Reuters.

With inputs from Reuters

"But (the) income tax (department) can't be sitting in the marketplace unless there is a specific complaint."