KOLKATA: The National investigation Agency that is probing the fake currency racket operating in India, has come out with some startling revelation. Interrogating a couple of people arrested by the BSF with counterfeit notes, the NIA found that approximately Rs 1500 crore of counterfeit notes pumped into the country have crossed the border through Malda border. The investigators have also found that most of the notes that have entered the country have been printed in Pakistan and was routed to India through Bangladesh.

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The National Investigating Agency which has carried out a series of arrests including Sajib-ul-Haq (20), Anwar (21), Jamal Sheik (24) and Akram (19), Habibul Rahaman (26), Abdul Mutalik (25) and Prashant Mondal (23) from Chenai and Hyderabad in the recent past say that 90 per cent of fake currency that is brought into the country have a link with the Malda unit which smuggles these notes. The investigators have found that there was dedicate lot of Pakistanis who set up shops in Bangladesh and these shops are breeding ground for trading these counterfeit notes which are eventually routed to into India. Malda is an easy landing point as it borders with Bangladesh. This is a racket that has been going on for the past four to five years now ever since the border with Pakistan became extremely difficult for these criminals to operate on.

After taking the charge of investigation on June 12, the NIA took custody of three people- Soaul, Jhonny Sheik abd Shahjahan- all from Malda and took them to Delhi on transit remand for interrogation. Their interrogation revealed that there are several modules mainly in the bordering blocks like Kaliachawk, Chachol, Gazol and Manikchawk area which are active bringing in fake currency from Bangladesh.

“After the money comes to the hands of these module operatives, they pick up several youths to execute the job. They go to major cities like Mumbai or Bengaluru and start working as construction labour. Along with their work they start circulating the notes in installments. They stay on in these cities for a couple of months and manage to circulate at least Rs 2 lakh worth of fake currency each,” an investigating officer said. The dup revealed that they were working as agents against commission. “The commission offered to them is 100 to 200 rupees for circulating 1000 rupees,” the officer said. The NIA officers have every reason to believe that some bank officers being hand in glove with these persons.

The investigators have also found that the quality of the notes was of extremely superior and most of the security measures were preset in the notes naturally making it very difficult for the common people to understand that it is a fake currency. “Sometimes it is even difficult for the bank personnel to realise the difference without a forensic test. This is really alarming,” an officer said. The investigators also noticed that the notes sourced by Pakistan to print its own currency was being used to print the Indian fake currency as well.

Read this in Hindi: यहां से भारत आ रही है 90 फीसदी फेक करंसी

