Four held for circulating fake currency worth lakhs

The police on July 14 arrested the accused from the flower market near Dadar railway station after a shopkeeper alerted them about his attempts to circulate fake notes

Mumbai: The police has arrested an out-of-work road contractor and three others for allegedly printing counterfeit Indian currency and circulating them in the city. A colour printer, high-quality bond paper, several colour inks and a cutting machine were seized from the accused in Karnataka. He learnt how to print counterfeit currency through the internet, police said.

Main accused Kiran Kamble

The police on July 14 arrested the accused from the flower market near Dadar railway station after a shopkeeper alerted them about his attempts to circulate fake notes. “When we intercepted the man, identified as Anand Kumar, we found ₹1,200 with him – all fake notes,” said Mahesh Mugutrao, senior police inspector of Dadar police station.

During questioning, Kumar revealed that he had got the notes from one person identified as Shiv Kumar Shankar, who resided in Karnataka.

“A team headed by assistant police inspector Ramkrishna Sagade, constables Rajendra Ravrane, Mahesh Kolte, Santosh Patane, Ajit Mahadik, Dhruv Kolte and Ganesh Mane was then despatched to Karnataka to verify the information given by Anand Kumar,” said Mugutrao.

On further investigation, we learnt that the main accused, Kiran Kamble (24), stayed in Humnabad in Bidar district of Karnataka and on reaching the spot found out that Kamble was operating out of a few rented rooms.

“He used to work as a road contractor in Karnataka and had a government license, but since the Covid-19 pandemic, he was out of work. He learnt to print fake currency notes from some video sharing platforms,” said Sagade.

The fake notes were circulated through Shiv Kumar Shankar. “We have also arrested one Akash Todalgi who has also taken notes from Shiv Kumar Shankar and circulated them in the Mumbai market. Anand Kumar used to work in a cloth shop for the last 15 years in Dadar. He knew Shankar as he was from his native place and had started bringing in fake currency notes to Mumbai. For fake notes worth one lakh, he had to pay only ₹25,000 in genuine currency,” said Mugutrao.

The police said Kamble used to print notes of only ₹100 and ₹200 denominations, as those are not examined properly, as compared to notes of ₹500 and ₹2,000 denominations.

“They used to scan one note then take its colour printout on executive bond paper. They also fixed one green shining line in between and cut them with the help of a cutter in the size of currency notes. The notes were also crumpled to them look original. They mostly used fake notes at night to avoid detection. The accused started circulating the notes in local weekly markets and started sending the fake notes out of Karnataka only after gaining confidence,” said Sagade.

“We have seized fake notes worth ₹68,000 from the accused and found that they have circulated over a few lakhs till now and a lot of money is circulated in Solapur and other market places in western Maharashtra,” Sagade added.