Smugglers use gambling dens to push FICN into city

Smugglers of FICN seem to have found a new modus operandi to penetrate Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) into the city — not through the traditional markets, but through grey markets like gambling dens and shoddy real estate deals. Officials of the Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) arrested two people with FICN of Rs5 lakh on Monday.

During investigation, police found that the accused might have visited some gambling dens of the city and already floated the fake notes. However, based on a tip-off, they were nabbed by DCB sleuths from near Himalaya Mall in Vastrapur area.

Police sources also said that the accused had also planned to put the fake money in a real estate deal, where a large amount of black money was to be transacted.

The fake notes seized from the arrested duo include 401 notes of denomination of 1,000 and 199 of 500. According to preliminary police investigation, they had procured it from Malda in West Bengal.

The two people arrested are Rajveer Singh Jat (35), a resident of Punjab, and Jaiprakash Kesari alias Jackie (26), a resident of Jharkhand.

During the course of investigation, the police also found that they were provided the FICNs from two people – Uttam Bengali and Rafiq Mohammad – both residents of Jharkhand, for penetration into the city.
Joint commissioner of police, DCB, AK Sharma, while addressing a press conference, said that the accused paid Rs1 lakh to get FICN of Rs5 lakh from their mentors in Jharkhand. Bengali and Jackie met each other in a Jamnagar jail and conspired to smuggle the FICN into Gujarat.

The water mark on fake notes was displaced and the silver thread did not bear RBI imprint, a key feature of the genuine notes, Sharma said adding that differentiating them from genuine ones was a tough task.

@dnaahmedabad