17-year-old held trying to sell fake currency at mall

The Vishnunagar police recently arrested three persons in a fake currency racket and seized a stack of fake notes of Rs1,000.

The Vishnunagar police recently arrested three persons in a fake currency racket and seized a stack of fake notes of Rs1,000.

HT Image

The police are now trying to get to the root of the racket.

PI Rajendra Kulkarni from the Vishnunagar police station said they had received a tip-off about a person coming to sell fake currency at Pritam Mall in Dombivli.

“Our team laid a trap and arrested Hussain Akthar Sheikh, 17, during a body search and recovered 17 fake currency notes of Rs1,000. Upon being questioned the boy told us he was a Bangladeshi national and that he was being used to bring fake notes from Bangladesh and sell them for a commission to two Indian agents. He named the two agents and said they lived in Mumbra,” Kulkarni said.

The police immediately raided the residence of the two Indian agents Mohammad Yusuf Sheikh, 30, and Mohammad Najbul Sheikh, 19, who were part of the fake currency racket and seized 32 fake currency notes of Rs1,000 from them.

PI Rajendra Kulkarni said that the fake currency notes looked exactly like legitimate Indian currency and could only be identified under an ultraviolet lamp.

Currently, the Bangladeshi fake currency racket mafia use small children as carriers in their fake currency racket.