Bangladesh and Nepal are not just known to be safe havens for terrorists, but also home to a flourishing counterfeit currency industry.
KOLKATA: Bangladesh and Nepal are not just known to be safe havens for terrorists, but also home to a flourishing counterfeit currency industry, both of which find their way into India through porous borders.
In fact, counterfeit Indian currency worth over Rs200 crore is believed to be ready at terrorist hideouts in the two countries, waiting to enter India through West Bengal. But sleuths have recently stumbled upon the fact that the industry receives its raw materials— special ink and paper—from India itself, from the counterfeiters’ local agents.
A recent joint probe by the the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and CID of Bengal police has tracked this nexus between Indian and Bangladeshi counterfeiters. While the Indian side supplies the raw materials, their overseas partners commission the printing.
But after printing, it is the joint responsibility of both sides to bring the counterfeit notes to India and then circulate the same in different Indian cities. The probe teams also have definite clues that clearly point to Pakistan’s ISI as the “behind-the-curtain” operator.
Top CID sources told DNA that the basic reason behind shifting the printing bases to neighbouring countries is the increased vigilance by Bengal police recently that led to the busting of many such hubs here during the last one year.
“The involvement of currency experts from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in our operations helped our drive against the counterfeiters. We not only seized currency notes and arrested kingpins of the trade, but also destroyed many printing hubs,” a senior official of CID’s special operations group said.
According to information available with the CID and CBI, in the last six months counterfeiters with their overseas partners have established at least 10 printing hubs in Bangladesh, Nepal and Dubai.
In fact, a high-level meeting was recently held between top officials of the RBI, CBI, CID, Intelligence Bureau and intelligence branches of different state police. At the meeting, the RBI’s currency experts elaborated on the innovations counterfeiters might apply in order to make the fake notes look more original.
r_sumanta@dnaindia.net
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