NEW DELHI: Suspecting Pakistan’s hand in the recent supply of high quality fake Indian currency notes (FICN) printed on the same paper as the Pakistani rupee, the National Investigation Agency has initiated a probe into a cross-border network of smugglers who work for ISI. The syndicate was busted earlier this year by Delhi Police’s Special Cell with the arrest of kingpin Shahjahan Sheikh alias Tunnu of West Bengal’s Malda district along with his two associates and recovery of ‘genuine looking’ FICN worth Rs 20 lakh.It is suspected that the gang worked for men sitting in Pakistan and ISI directly facilitates their operation of smuggling FICN worth crores to Bangladesh and then to Indian states via Indo-Bangla border.Officials say that Shahjahan was allegedly receiving FICNs from one Maidul and Janarul, major Bangladesh-based suppliers of FICN, and also had direct access to the entrenched contraband markets of Kaisar Haat, Chapai Nawabganj in Bangladesh, where ISI agents have set up a clandestine bazaar from where FICN can be obtained in huge quantity by paying for it in original Bangladeshi currency i.e. Taka. After procuring FICNs as per demand from Kaiser Haat, Shahjahan used an extensive network of cross-border smugglers to get the same transported to his native village from where, it again used to pass through chains of conduits before reaching the intended buyers spread over Delhi NCR, Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat and other Indian territories.Looking at the route and network of syndicate, NIA last week took over the probe from the Special Cell and has started a full blown investigation. According to sources, the fake currency has been printed on same paper as Pakistani rupee.NIA has already in the past established through its probes Pakistan’s complicity in printing Indian currency notes with precision, which is destabilizing the economy. The agency had found with the help of a committee of experts from the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India that the fake notes showed most of the pivotal parameters of the paper, such as GSM, wax pick quotient, poly vinyl alcohol, and PH value, matching with Pakistani rupee. It had also said that the process of printing and paper making was also the same.According to a rough estimate by different agencies and RBI, somewhere between Rs 1,200 crore to Rs 1,500 crore FICN is pumped to India through various routes and several kingpins sitting in different countries. Among those who are known figures in helping ISI in the fake Indian currency supply include D Company men like Aftab Batki, biggest name in the fake currency ring - Iqbal Kana and others Subha Bhai, Aslam Choudhary, Sheikh Safi and Sikander. The routes used by ISI and its cronies include UAE, Bangladesh, Nepal, Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and China.