15 kg gold, ₹28.5 crore cash recovered from former govt bus driver in Bengal’s Birbhum

Gold bars valuing approximately ₹21.5 crore recovered from Minar Mondal’s house. Photo: X/@SuvenduWB | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement The West Bengal Police officials on Wednesday (July 29) recovered 15kg gold and ₹28.5 crore cash from a former government bus driver in the Birbhum area. The accused bus driver Minar Mondal is the brother-in-law of Tulu Mondal, allegedly a close aide of Trinamool Congress leader and strongman of the Birbhum district 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 top police official told The Hindu on Thursday (July 30, 2026).This cash and gold seizure has been one of the biggest in the State after such massive recoveries were made from properties linked to former Trinamool era Education Minister Partha Chatterjee’s and his aide Arpita Mukherjee. The amount recovered from Ms Mukherjee was ₹50 crore in cash and over 5 kilograms of gold. The cash was packed in around 35 sacks, and the gold was found as solid gold biscuits inside a humble house of Mr Minar Mondal. The police have brought in five machines to count the recovered cash and around five trunks to store them. The total cash recovery was around ₹28.5 crores, according to police officials. It was almost a 15-hour long operation. The gold bars recovered were valued at approximately ₹21.5 crore at current market prices. Mr Tulu Mondal alias Mohd Nazibuddin is an absconding businessman and influential stone trader and had close interest in the stone quarrying business in the Birbhum district. This comes amid a crackdown on illegal mining and sand smuggling in the Birbhum district. The police got a secret tip off and raided the house of Mr Minar Mondal late on Tuesday (July 28) and the cash recovery continued till Wednesday (July 29). Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said that this was a crackdown on the sand mafia and appreciated the local police for the massive cash and gold recovery. “West Bengal Govt’s ongoing drive against the corrupt will go on with ‘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,” Mr Adhikari wrote on his social media on Wednesday morning. He also added that the crackdown on mafia syndicates will continue. Earlier in July, Mr Adhikari had accused that most of the money from stone industrial areas was siphoned off by the previous Trinamool government leading to low revenues. He also said that within one month, their new government was able to stop that revenue leakage and improve the earnings of the government. Interestingly, Mr Anubrata Mondal himself was previously arrested in 2022 by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the cattle smuggling scam. He spent over 25 months in prison after a disproportionate amount of cash was recovered from his properties and was later released on bail in 2024. In the cattle scam, the CBI and Enforcement Directorate officials are investigating 70 properties linked to Mr. Anubrata Mondal, multiple land deals, two rice mills, and other businesses. Published - July 30, 2026 11:20 am IST