"Barclays Bank has orally informed us that the International Bills of Exchange seized from T M Ramalingam are fake," the official said on condition of anonymity.
He said the bank has agreed to give it in writing about the genuiness of the bills.
"We are anticipating it will be bogus. Because if a person has such Bills of Exchange, the monthly interest he gets will be around Rs 250 crore. Barclays Bank orally told us that they are fake," the official said.
Meanwhile, the deposition of Ramalingam, scheduled for tomorrow, has been postponed to a later date.
The official said, "he (Ramalingam) has claimed that the bills are genuine and were obtained from US treasury department. We are awaiting confirmation from them on the genuineness of the bills."
On December 31, Income Tax sleuths had raided his residence at Dharapuram in Tirupur district and seized the bills of exchange.
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Last week, they grilled Ramalingam, a groundnut merchant, almost for the whole day following recovery of the bills. Tax authorities had said it would take at least a week to ascertain their genuineness.
"As of now, he is mentioning he has got it (the papers) from a Brazilian based person in exchange for gold bonds. We are verifying...," he had said then.