The international bills of exchange seized from T. M. Ramalingam of Tamil Nadu have been sent to New Delhi for verification and the results would be out sometime next week, an I-T official involved in the case said.

Tirupur, Tamil Nadu-based trader Ramalingam was recently caught by the I-T Department with international bills of exchange with a face value of $5 billion (around Rs 27,000 crore).

The officials had raised his palatial house on December 31, after he attracted their attention by depositing more than Rs 3,000 crore for placing a bid to set up a crude oil refinery in Cuddalore. Initially, they mistook the bills for U. S. treasury bonds, but I-T officials probing the seizure confirmed on Friday that they were not U. S. treasury bonds.

Some officials even believe that bills could be counterfeit. Thus to verify the documents, they have been set to the national capital.

Revealing the development, an I-T official said, “We have sent the documents to New Delhi for verification as there is a set procedure to verify documents belonging to other countries and we don’t want to break the rules and the results would be out next week.”

Class X dropout Ramalingam, 46, claims to be a groundnut trader. He claims to own just two acres of land plus a petrol pump in Upputhariapalayam. He also claims that he had purchased these controversial bills of exchange by swapping gold bonds (worth $5 billion) with a person based in Brazil.