Six held trying to palm off Rs 4-lakh fake currency

Mateen Hafeez I TNN

Mumbai: Six Jharkhand residents have been arrested over the past week for possessing and circulating fake Indian currency. The Pydhonie police have also seized the counterfeit notes with a face value of Rs 4.08 lakh. The kingpin, Tahoor Ali, however, is still wanted.

The accused, Haroon Ali Shaikh (20), Izbul Shaikh (27), Mubeen Shaikh (25), Umruddin Shaikh (26), Mufazul Shaikh (19) and Ismail Shaikh (20), have been remanded in police custody.

According to the police, the six had brought fake currency, with a total face value of Rs 5 lakh, to circulate in the market. “They came to Mumbai two months ago and stayed in the slums on P D’Mello Road. Posing as coconut vendors and flower sellers to avoid suspicion, they would buy inexpensive items with the fake notes. Once they would get genuine currency in return, they would pass on the amount to their ringleader, after taking their commission from it,’’ said senior inspector Shamsher Pathan.

R K Padmanabhan, additional police commissioner, said 100 notes of Rs 500 denomination and 358 Rs-1,000 notes were seized from the accused who were nabbed after head constable Jameel Sayeed got a tip-off. “The paper and printing quality of the notes are amazing. The accused claimed that they were only assigned with the job of circulating the fake currency. They would also get a commission of 50%,” Padmanabhan said. The counterfeit notes are made so cleverly that it’s difficult to differentiate them from original ones. Each bears the fake signature of former RBI governor Y V Reddy and Rs 1,000 notes belong to 5AC and 7AF series, while the Rs 500 ones are of the 5SB series.

The accused are from Peerpur village in Sahibganj district in Jharkhand. “The place is just 35 km from the Bangladesh border. The notes might have been smuggled in from Bangladesh but we have to verify it,’’ Padmanabhan said. Tahoor Ali, the supplier of the notes, was detained by the Peerpur police two months ago, but was let off after a routine inquiry.

The police said one of the accused, Haroon, came to Mumbai two months ago. He was admitted to a hospital for a surgery, and he payed the Rs-21,000 bill with genuine money that he had earned by circulating counterfeit notes.

The Times of India, December 7, 2009