India’s most wanted criminal — Dawood Ibrahim reportedly has a close network in Bangalore, who support him in his subversive activities in the country. Two of Dawood’s ‘associates’ from Bangalore were arrested in Mumbai last week with counterfeit currency.

In a major operation, the crime branch of Mumbai police arrested Riyaz Ahmed Abdul (38) and Raghavendra Satyanarayan Kutty (24) in Mumbai on August 30.

Both hail from Bangalore and had gone to Mumbai to pick up a consignment of fake currency from one Akhtar Ali.
“The face value of the fake currency is Rs 19,49,500. They were in the denomination of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500. Ali had received the consignment from another man — a ‘courier’, who had carried it from Dubai,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Detection), Mumbai (Crime branch), Deven Bharati told Deccan Herald over the phone.

Consignment

“We are on the lookout for the man. The consignment was routed from Aftab Patki in Karachi to one Nooruddin alias Noorbhai Laundrywalla in Dubai to Ali in Mumbai. It was meant to be sent to Bangalore through Abdul and Kutty. Riyaz has a garment shop in Bangalore and Kutty was accompanying him,” said the officer.

Nooruddin reportedly owns a big garment store in Dubai and is part of the ‘D’ Group.

“We are trying to find out the local connections of Dawood’s huge network and these two can be crucial sources of information. But it is too early to find out the amount of fake currency they have pumped in the Indian market,” said Mr Bharati.

A couple of years back, the IB had alerted the local police and State Intelligence about a consignment of currency from Dawood to his local contact in Bangalore. “We received the information late. By then, the man, who was to receive the consignment had fled,” said a senior police officer in State police.

Ali and Kutty’s arrest is close on the heels of the arrest of K M Abdulla from Sri Lanka by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Abdullah is Dawood’s right hand man in the fake currency racket in India and is well known to Abdul Rasheed Hussaini alias Abdul Hameed alias Puttu, another Dawood aide in the racket.

Cases registered

Puttu has two cases registered against him in Bangalore and six cases in Mumbai involving fake currency. He was brought from Mumbai by the Karnataka CoD last month.

Puttu, a native of Bantwal, Mangalore, was arrested by the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), Mumbai in New Delhi in November 2006 after he was deported from Dubai on November 18, to investigate fake currency cases registered in the metropolis.