Mumbai

AS Indians struggle with the chaos caused by last month's sudden banning of their 500 and 1,000 rupee notes, money-laundering networks are spreading across the country, seizing on a new market in helping people turn their cash hoards into legal tender.

While people have until year-end to deposit old notes in their bank accounts, the government has said it will scrutinise large cash deposits and money with undeclared origins - and will tax or penalise depositors. That's created a scramble for ways to turn so-called black money, the local term for cash that has evaded taxation, into white.