A SPECIAL Operation Group team (SOG) arrested a man dealing in manufacture and sale of counterfeit currency notes on late Sunday evening near the CMP Degree college.
The man, identified as Wasim Ahmad, resident of Shekhpur, Kunda in Pratapgarh district, was waiting for somebody when the police team zeroed on him.
During the search, police found a 100-rupee note along with a 50-rupee note from his pocket. Both notes turned out to be genuine. The catch however, came from the bag he was carrying which was full of counterfeit currency notes.
Police found five packs of rupees 100 denomination notes along with 12 extra 100 rupee notes stuffed loosely in the bag. All the currency was fake.
On being grilled, the man confessed he had been manufacturing fake currency through an HP scanner. He had been in the business of manufacturing fake currency for the past six months, he told the police.
He had been supplying a bundle of fake currency note of rupees 100 denomination in exchange for half the amount of genuine currency.
He was still being interrogated at the police station.
{{/usCountry}}He was still being interrogated at the police station.
{{/usCountry}}A photographer by profession, Wasim is said to have spent considerable time in Mumbai from where he is reported to have picked up the art of manufacturing fake currency.
Cops were surprised to find the fake currency looking exactly like the genuine currency and it was difficult to distinguish between the two.
A closer look at the numbers and the paper used by the trickster, however showed the difference.
Several notes in a pack had the same serial number. In all, police fished out 50 one thousand and two 100 rupees from his bag.
During interrogation, he named Salim, resident of Kareli, who asked him to print the counterfeit currency.
Salim, according to Wasim, is a scrap dealer. Besides interrogating him further cops were trying to find the antecedents of Salim who had not been traced till late Monday evening.