Three persons were on Wednesday arrested with counterfeit Rs 2,000 notes having a face value of Rs 7.64 lakh from Pukharian area in Kanpur Dehat district, police said.

After a tip-off, the police raided the house of Samrendra Sachan and seized fake notes in huge numbers along with a high quality printer and a scanner. Paswan was arrested on the spot, SP Prabhakar Chowdhary said.

The remaining two accused, Prasoon Sachan and Ashish Gupta, were arrested after Samrendra gave their location during an interrogation, he said, adding fake notes with face-value Rs 7.64 was recovered from them.

"The accused said that they have circulated fake Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes having face value Rs 80 lakh in Kanpur and its surrounding areas. They used to exchange people's demonetized notes with fake ones," the SP claimed. Even though the seized notes look similar to the real ones, the paper is thinner and the RBI mark is missing on the notes, he said.

The accused were all graduates and one of them was a MSc in Computer studies, Chowdhary said, adding the police has lodged a manhunt to nab other members of the gang.

A case has been lodged under relevant sections of the IPC and the matter is being probed, the SP said.