It is not in one place, but in the hands of different people. Hawala (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala) is very active in certain northern districts of Kerala.
I agree, its a fairly non-trivial amount of money.
Even I am not sure who is correct here. Either the guy is lying about the amount or the Govt is lying about amount received. Things aren't quite clear here.
There's this thing which goes by the name "Kunjalikutti fund" which isn't that trivial from what I heard ;)
The govt isnt lying - if they were the economy would lose altitude and correct at a much lower level - thered be no reason to keep faith in any of the govt numbers, and we would have moved much closer to banana republic status.
If the govt wanted to lie, they would have put up better numbers - meaning a larger gap between money demonitized and money received.
