Former Bus Driver in Bengal's Birbhum Held with 15 kg Gold, ₹28.5 Crore Cash

The West Bengal Police on Wednesday recovered 15 kg of gold and ₹28.5 crore in cash from the property of a former government bus driver in Birbhum district, officials said. The accused, Minar Mondal, is the brother-in-law of Tulu Mondal, an absconding businessman and alleged close associate of Trinamool Congress leader Anubrata Mondal.

“Minar Mondal has been arrested after the raid. It was his property where this cash and gold was found. A case has been registered and investigation is ongoing,” a senior police officer told the press on Thursday.

The seizure is among the largest in the state since recoveries were made from properties linked to former Education Minister Partha Chatterjee and his aide Arpita Mukherjee, from whom ₹50 crore in cash and over 5 kg of gold were seized.

Police said the cash was packed in about 35 sacks, and the gold was in the form of solid biscuits, found inside a modest house owned by Minar Mondal. Authorities brought in five machines to count the cash and used five trunks to store it. The operation lasted nearly 15 hours. The gold bars are valued at approximately ₹21.5 crore at current market prices.

Tulu Mondal, also known as Mohd Nazibuddin, is a stone trader with close ties to the quarrying business in Birbhum. The arrests come amid a crackdown on illegal mining and sand smuggling in the district. Police acted on a tip-off and raided Minar Mondal's house late Tuesday, with the recovery continuing into Wednesday.

BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, the Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal, welcomed the action. In a social media post, he said: “West Bengal Government’s ongoing drive against the corrupt will go on with a ‘Zero Tolerance Policy against Corruption’ as our guiding principle. Let it be unequivocally clear: no person with a chequered past who has amassed wealth through the exploitation of public resources and hobnobbing with the then ruling political party will be spared. Public wealth belongs to the people, and those who loot it will face the full might of the law.” He added that the crackdown on mafia syndicates would continue.

Earlier in July, Adhikari had alleged that much of the money from stone industrial areas was siphoned off under the previous government. He claimed that the new government had stopped revenue leakage and improved earnings within a month. Notably, Anubrata Mondal was previously arrested in 2022 by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the cattle smuggling scam, spending over 25 months in prison after a large amount of cash was recovered from his properties. He was released on bail in 2024. In connection with that case, the CBI and Enforcement Directorate are investigating 70 properties linked to Anubrata Mondal, along with land deals and businesses.