The district police have busted a drug trafficking and fake currency circulation gang by arresting four persons, including a money exchanger, and seized from them counterfeit currencies with a face value of Rs. 52,000.

After the manager of Kilakarai branch of State Bank of India (SBI) recently alerted the police about six fake currency notes, in the denomination of Rs. 1,000, in the money two persons brought to the bank for depositing, the police swung into action and busted the gang by piecing together four important links in the racket.

Superintendent of Police N.M. Mylvahanan, citing preliminary investigations, said that counterfeit currencies in the denomination of Rs. 1,000 and with a total face value of Rs. 9.5 lakh had found its way into Rameswaram island through a drug peddler in Sri Lanka in exchange of ganja.

“The fake Indian currencies were very high quality with texture, style and font sizes matching with those of real currencies,” he said. The fake currencies could be detected only by taking a close look at the hologram, he said, adding the source of the currency was yet to be ascertained. “This has serious dimensions and will be probed in detail,” he added.

K. Maheswari, Deputy Superintendent of Police (Kilakarai), heading a special team, busted the gang by arresting Subur Rahim, a worker at Erwadi Dargah, and the first link in the case. Interrogation of Rahim led to the arrest of Mithilej, Yasar Arafat and Ibrahim in Erwadi and Pamban, she said.

“We arrested and remanded the four on Sunday and launched a dragnet for four others, including a drug trafficker who had received the fake currencies from a drug peddler in Sri Lanka in exchange of ganja and a Sri Lankan Tamil in Madurai,” Ms. Maheswari said.

Arafat, who was running a fancy shop in Erwadi was a money exchanger and acted as the main distributor of fake currencies, she said, adding Ibrahim had already circulated fake currencies with a face value of Rs. 1 Lakh. The fake currencies had JDN 967363, 967369, 969438, 967355, 962910 and 964610 series, police sources said.