Bhubaneswar, Nov. 12: In a joint exercise, the income tax department and the enforcement directorate conducted raids on jewellery shops in the city today.

The officials searched six foreign exchange service providers and two branded jewellery shops last night.

Jewellery shops had allegedly accepted demonetised currencies of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 by issuing customers pre-dated invoices while foreign exchange service providers were exchanging the banned denominations.

According to sources, the two agencies jointly conducted raids at Subas Jewellers in Saheed Nagar today, while similar raids were conducted at Lal Chand Jewellers at Master Canteen and Khimji Jewellers in Saheed Nagar yesterday. Sources said officials had recovered some crucial documents from the organisations during the raids.

The officials have also searched foreign exchange service providers such as Thomas Cook at Ashok Nagar, Mentus and Wiezmann Forex at Kharavela Nagar, Mannapuram Finance and Credit Forex Service at Saheed Nagar, UAE Exchange Financial Service and LKP Forex at Jayadev Vihar.

Raids were also conducted at jewellery shops in Cuttack and Rourkela yesterday. An official said they had received inside information about the illegal transactions of the demonetised currencies at the establishments following which they planned and conducted the raids. "Investigation is on," added the official.

In view of the raids, many big brand jewellery shops remained shut in the city today, while the smaller ones kept their shutters half down. Customers showed reluctance to visit jewellery shops that had kept their shutters half down ever since news of the raids spread since Friday evening.

"The announcement by the government of demonetisation clearly mentioned that some selected facilities such as filling stations, medicine shops and others could receive the banned denominations, but not establishments such as jewellery shops. The government's move aimed at netting tax evaders and keeping a check on black money transactions is evidently yielding results," said Damana resident Karunakar Mohanty, a social worker.

The IT and enforcement directorate sleuths have asked all the raided jewellery shops and the foreign exchange service providers to furnish details of their transactions since the government's announcement of demonetisation. Officials said many persons had reportedly approached several jewellery shops to convert their unaccounted money into gold ornaments.