VIJAYAWADA: Not only the organisers made fortunes out of cockfights during Sankranti season, counterfeit currency gangs too made a killing by pumping huge money in the gambling arenas. Many punters who won money realised gradually that they have been cheated with fake notes Ch Srinivas, a resident of Vanukuru in Krishna district, participated in the cockfights held at Edupugallu village under Kankipadu mandal. He made about Rs 15,000 on cockfights. But later he realised that he had been cheated only after he went to the bank to deposit the money in his account. The bank staff rejected nearly Rs 10,000, as both Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 denominations notes, which were fake.Srinivas was among those who received fake currency notes. They could not lodge a complaint as the money was ill gotten. Instead of going to the police, they remained silent about the matter.The fraudsters utilized the cockfights to use the fake currency notes as the transactions were done secretly in a hurried manner. None one could check whether the notes they got were fake or authentic.G Subbaraju, a native of Bhimavaram, said that most of the punters take the risk of getting fake notes as they hardly get any time to verify it.Kachikacherla police recently arrested two persons from Telangana for allegedly circulating fake currency notes. Kachikacherla inspector D Chandrasekhar said that cockfight arenas and the places of gambling are the perfect places for the fraudsters to circulate fake currency notes.The gang that was busted by Chilakaluripet police in Guntur district on Friday also revealed that huge amount of fake currency notes had been exchanged in cockfight arenas in East and West Godavari districts. Out of the six gang members arrested, four are from West Godavari and have previous cases filed against them in counterfeit currency circulation.