NIA arrests kingpin of fake currency notes in Dhanbad

The National Investigation Agency arrested a 35-year-old man alleged to be a major kingpin in the Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) network, a group that has been responsible for funding terror activities in India according to the probe agency. The accused, identified as Uttam Kumar Sinha, has cases registered against him in states including Mumbai, Gujarat and Jharkhand, and has been arrested on several occasions previously. He was arrested on Sunday in Dhanbad and the NIA said that a total of five mobile phones and 13 sim cards were recovered from him.

A resident of village Saluipahari in district Bankura of West Bengal, Sinha is said to be instrumental in allegedly dispatching fake currency to the tune of more than Rs 4 crore to different parts of the county in the last few years. The agency said that Sinha's name had cropped up several times during interrogation of other arrested members of the network accused of smuggling fake currency. The currency has also been referred to as 'money jihad'.

Sinha was also wanted in a FICN smuggling case being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation and had been absconding since July 2012. 

"The modus operandi involves dispatching fake currency by couriers in the guise of labourers and masons to different parts of the country and in turn the payment is received through cash deposits from different states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, and other parts of the country, into the bank accounts maintained by him," said an NIA official.

The probe agency had claimed that the fake currency is pushed into India from Bangladesh in order to fund the activities of outfits like the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and the Indian Mujahideen (IM). Sinha's arrest has further pointed out towards the strong bases maintained by the fake currency network in Bangladesh as the accused is said to have been maintaining contacts there for almost a decade.

Sinha, according to the agency, has disclosed that he used to procure high quality FICN through his contacts in Bangladesh and then distribute the same through his gang members in different parts of the country. He had been arrested in the past in Gujarat as well as Jharkhand in cases relating to FICN smuggling but he managed to obtain bail and activated the smuggling network again. 

In 2008, Mumbai Railway police had also arrested one Nishpal Mandal  suspected to have circulated fake currency valued at over Rs 1.5 crore. Mandal was arrested in West Bengal. Police had claimed that Mandal was in touch with Masood Shiekh, his point man in Bangladesh, and had been bringing in fake currency to India through Indo-Bangladesh border. Sinha was among the four people who acted as his agents. They were also arrested the same year. The accused were booked under IPC sections for fraud, forgery, conspiracy and distribution of counterfeit currency.

Following an 2012 amendment in Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, the circulation of such high quality FICN printed abroad and smuggled into the country is considered to be done with the sole intention to threaten, deplete, erode and undermine the economic security and sovereignty of India. This according to the amendment is tantamount to a terrorist act.

NIA along with Jharkhand ATS is now conducting raids in different parts of the state to identify and arrest other co-accused. The probe agency had taken over the investigation of a case relating to recovery of FICN of face value of Rs 10 lakhs which was seized at Murshidabad (West Bengal) by officials of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence.