Delhi police bust major fake currency racket; two persons arrested

The fake currency was allegedly smuggled through the porous India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal. The arrested men have allegedly supplied fake notes in Delhi for over two years

The Delhi Police on Thursday said they have busted an international racket involved in smuggling fake Indian currency notes (FICN) into India and circulating them in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR).

A representational image. (PTI/File)

Two alleged members of the gang have been arrested with fake notes ( ₹8 lakh) in the denomination of ₹2,000. The currency was allegedly smuggled through the porous India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal. The arrested men have allegedly supplied fake notes ( ₹2 crore) in Delhi over two years.

Deputy police commissioner Jasmeet Singh said the arrested men, Feroz Sheikh, 42, and Muffazul Sheikh, 52, belong to West Bengal’s Murshidabad and were arrested on Tuesday. He added in October, they received information regarding the circulation of fake notes. Singh said a team accordingly began collecting details about the persons involved and later identified two active members of the gang and kept a watch on their movements.

On Tuesday, the team received inputs that Feroz Sheikh would deliver a consignment of fake notes to his associate. Accordingly, a trap was laid and the two were held.

Police cited Feroz Sheikh’s Interrogation and added he procured the fake notes from one Salaam of Murshidabad. Salaam allegedly directed him to hand over the notes to Muffazul Sheikh in Delhi and their contacts in the city for circulation. The arrested accused have allegedly been circulating fake notes across the country for five years.

“Feroz disclosed that Salaam used to receive the fake notes from Bangladesh. The two paid ₹30,000 in original currency notes to procure fake banknotes worth ₹1 lakh from Salaam. They further supplied that ₹1 lakh of fake notes to their contacts in Delhi-NCR and other parts of the country for ₹45,000. They confessed to having supplied FICN amounting to over ₹two crores in Delhi in the last two years,” said a second officer.

Police said after the 2016 demonetisation of high-value notes, there was a pause in the circulation of FICN from Bangladesh and Pakistan for about a year. They added many syndicates have again started smuggling and circulating the FICN in India.

Police said the notes seized from the two are of such fine quality that it is difficult to distinguish them from the original ones. The fake currency has almost similar security features such as texture, quality of paper, colour, security thread and watermarks.

“From the investigation of various cases of big seizures of FICN in Kathmandu (Nepal), Bangladesh and in India after demonetisation, it has been strongly suspected that big consignments of FICNs are first brought into Nepal and Bangladesh from Pakistan through Gulf countries by air and from there they are smuggled into India through porous international borders of Nepal and Bangladesh,” said Singh.