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PATNA: Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) officials on Wednesday arrested a 25-year-old resident of West Champaran district and recovered fake Indian currency notes with face value Rs 10 lakh near Maheshi village in East Champaran district.
Acting on a tip-off, DRI officials apprehended Munna Alam, son of Sheikh Vakil. He is alleged to be a member of an international syndicate. “We were working on the information for ten days and tracked Alam when he was travelling to Bettiah by a bus with fake currency notes smuggled from Bangladesh via Malda in West Bengal,” a DRI source said.
Alam has told his interrogators he successfully smuggled 15 to 20 consignments of fake Indian notes into the country during the last two months. “He confessed to changing his modus operandi every time. So frequently did the smugglers change their mode of operation that the DRI had to cultivate an informer within the gang to receive specific inputs,” the DRI source said.
The sleuths recovered 14 bundles of fake Indian notes wrapped in a Bangladeshi newspaper. Of these, eight bundles were of Rs 500 denomination and six of Rs 1,000. “The smugglers would purchase the fake currency at 30% of its value in Bangladesh. That is, if the consignment recovered is of the face value of Rs 10 lakh, Alam must have paid only Rs three lakh to procure this consignment,” the source said and added once such a consignment reaches India safely, its value doubles in the market.
DRI sources said Malda in West Bengal and West Champaran in Bihar were emerging as the biggest hub of fake Indian notes, from where come 80% of the fake notes pumped into India. “According to our inputs, fake notes of high quality are printed in Pakistan and clandestinely brought into India via Bangladesh,” the DRI source said and added printing, smuggling or circulation of fake notes have been declared a terrorist act under Indian laws.
Sources said intelligence inputs suggest increase in smuggling of fake Indian currency notes in the wake of upcoming state assembly election.
