Cops swoop down on fake currency gang in Bangalore

Fake notes are causing an alarm in the city after police busted a currency racket on Saturday and nabbed three persons. Two members of the gang escaped arrest. Although the sum seized is still small, the racket crisscrosses borders, into Nepal, and could be well entrenched in the city.

Counterfeit Indian currencies of Rs500 and Rs1,000 denominations, with a face value Rs1.72 lakh, have been seized from the accused. The accused, Binod Prasad (40), Raindar (23) and Basanth Prasad (60), were from “West Champaran in Bihar’s Motihari district”, police said.

Motihari, however, is not a district in Bihar. It is the headquarters of East Champaran district. When asked, a senior police officer said the accused persons gave their address as West Champaran, in Motihari. “We will visit Bihar to ascertain the address,” he said.

Police claimed that the high-quality fake currencies were printed in Pakistan. They reached Bangalore via Nepal. City police commissioner Shankar M Bidari said the racket was a well-organised one and it had already made several transactions, duping many people.

“We will alert the Reserve Bank of India and check the series of the notes to issue an alert, so that people can report counterfeits,” he said.

The kingpin, the fake currency supplier, was still in Nepal and the police would find it difficult to visit that country. “We will have to discuss this with the government,” the commissioner said. India and Nepal were yet to sign an extradition treaty.

The north-east division of the city police had a week ago assigned the Sampigehalli sub-division to probe into fake currencies being circulated in Thanisandra and Kothnur areas. After zeroing in on the gang, a police officer was sent as a decoy customer.

“We met Binod and Raindar at 10 am on Saturday. When they produced the fake currencies, we caught them. We found 30 fake currency notes of Rs500 denomination. We raided their residences and seized the rest,” assistant commissioner of police (Sampigehalli) Ramachandrappa said. The raid yielded 315 currency notes of Rs500 denomination and 15 of Rs1,000.

The five-member gang was staying at two rented houses in the same building in Thanisandra. Basanth Prasad was arrested in the raid, while two others, Anil Kumar and Amrit Prasad, escaped.

Police said the absconding suspects brought the currencies from Nepal. Police seized the ATM cards and voter identity cards, issued in Karnataka, of the five men. The gang was suspected to have made three major transactions here after arriving with families in the city a year ago. The accused were working as painters and carpenters.

“The man, who procured fake currencies from Pakistan, has been identified as Khuswah, a native of Beerganj in Nepal. He used to supply Rs1 lakh fake notes of Rs500 denominations for every Rs40,000 original notes paid to him, and 15 Rs1,000 notes for Rs1,000. These notes were printed in Pakistan and brought to India through Nepal with an intention of ‘upsetting’ the economy,” deputy commissioner of police (north-east) Basavaraj Y Malagatti said.

Police said the lack of checks at the Indo-Nepal border helped agents to smuggle in the currencies without much trouble.

Except for “RBI” and “Bharat Sarkar” printed on the security thread, the fakes had all elements of genuine notes. Three nationalised banks failed to detect it when the police showed them the fakes.