New route lands notes in Jharkhand

ACCESS POINT

Mateen Hafeez | TNN

Mumbai: The route financial terrorism has been taking into India has changed.

Earlier, fake currency was smuggled in through the Bangladesh-Kolkata route (via North 24 Parganas) or the Nepal-Gorakhpur or Nepal-Bihar routes. But these are no longer the most notorious routes for smuggling fake currency into India. Now, Jharkhand’s Sahibganj district has emerged as the main landing spot for fake currency from across the border.

“The Bihar, UP and Kolkata routes are not being used as frequently. These routes have been replaced by the Jharkhand one. Peerpur village in Sahibganj district has emerged as a prime landing spot. It is 35 km from the Bangladesh border,’’ said a police officer.

In November 2009, the Pydhonie police arrested six youths from Jharkhand and seized fake Indian currency worth Rs 5 lakh. The notes were of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination. The accused would get a commission of 50% for circulating the fake currency. Each note bore fake signatures of former RBI governor Y V Reddy.

Similarly, in April last year, the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) arrested six people and seized fake currency worth Rs 4 lakh. Again, the youths belonged to Jharkhand. In September last year, two youths were caught and they were also Jharkhand residents.

Investigators said the name of one Tahoor Ali has cropped up during investigations into several fake currency cases. Ali, an Indian citizen, was detained by the Peerpur police in August 2009, but let off after a routine inquiry.

Police sources said that Birganj, the biggest town in Nepal’s Terai region, was earlier the main transit point for almost all the fake currency entering India. The Pakistan embassy in Kathmandu was suspected to be the nerve centre for fake currency operations. It was suspected that K Mehmood, a senior ISI officer working in the embassy’s education department, ran the network with the help of another ISI officer, Jamil Alam. The other routes for smuggling fake currency were through Beherwa village and from Birganj to Biratnagar, all places on the Nepal border.

“However, due to India and Nepal agreeing to fight the menace of fake currency together, the printers are now using Jharkhand as the transit point. There are allegations that the police in Jharkhand are lenient towards the accused,’’ said an officer.

FORGING A NEW TRAIL

EARLIER, the prime route for getting fake notes into India was to smuggle them from Bangladesh to North 24 Parganas district in West Bengal

NOW, an increasing number of cases are being detected in which the notes are sent from Bangladesh to the Sahibganj district in Jharkhand
The smuggling of notes from Nepal to Bihar has declined

COSTLY FAKES
In April 2009, the Anti-Terrorism Squad seized fake Rs 1,000 notes that were of a very high quality. It would cost as much as Rs 450 to print such notes, the police said It was the first fake currency case in which the notes were suspected to have been printed in a government press. The police suspect they were printed at the government press in Quetta, Pakistan The notes had Optically Variable Ink, but the RBI said it was not of very good quality They had the latent image of the numeral ‘1000’ on the right side, but the ink was too light The letters ‘RBI’ and numeral ‘1000’ could be seen with a magnifying glass between the Mahatma Gandhi portrait and the vertical band, but ‘RBI’ and ‘1000’ were written fewer times The case was handed over to the National Investigation Agency

The Times of India, March 5, 2010