Destination for fake notes

A hardware engineer, Rajan got a shock when a bank employee told him that one of the 10 notes of Rs 500 he had brought to deposit at the bank was a counterfeit.

Embarrassed – at being fooled as well as being possibly taken for a criminal, Rajan first argued that he did not know, and the bank should accept the note. The Noida sector-18 branch of HDFC Bank however refused.He returned home and narrated the incident to his father, who runs a small grocery shop in Laxmi Nagar of east Delhi. Luckily, Rajan’s father remembered the customer who had given him the dubious note and managed to catch him in couple of days. Now was the customer’s turn to be shocked and embarrassed, but he changed the note.

The note probably was printed in a printing press of one of our neighbouring countries, and reached Delhi via Malda district in West Bengal.

Apart from curbing black money from the economy, the other big objective of the demonetisation process announced by the government is to root out counterfeit currency notes currently floating in the economy.

Delhi has become the hub of counterfeit currency notes in recent years with the police agencies and RBI recovering counterfeit notes with a face value of Rs 40.39 crores between 2012 and 2014, which is the most in the country, says a report of National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB).

Delhi is followed by Maharashtra (Rs 14.54 crore), UP (Rs 11.55 crore), Tamil Nadu (Rs 10.83 crore), Karnataka (Rs 7.22 crore), Gujarat (Rs 7.02 crore) and Andhra Pradesh (Rs 6.22 crore), the report stated.

Delhi Police’s Special Cell and Crime Branch units have been extra vigil to trace counterfeit currency notes entering in the city.

A senior police officer of Delhi Police’s Special Cell said that the FICN was being pumped by Pakistan in India through Bangladesh.

“These fake notes are first smuggled in Malda (West Bengal) through Bangladesh-India border and then handed over to FICN racketeers in various parts of the country including Delhi. The exchange of these fake notes also take place through Nepal border,” Sanjeev Yadav, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell).

Few months ago, four members of an international gang involved in circulating Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN), were arrested by the Delhi Police.

Sheikh Fazullah, 25, Sheikh Sehzad, 39, Habibur Rehman, 35, and Rehman, 42, were arrested from Delhi and Bihar in a series of raids conducted by Delhi Police.

Sehzad and Fazullah, both belong to same village in Bihar's Motihari district and were arrested on June 25 while exchanging a consignment of FICN near Wazirpur bus depot in north Delhi.

Rehman was arrested near east Delhi's Dilshad Garden Metro Station on June 27 with FICN with face value of Rs. 25,000, while Habibur Rehman was held in Bihar where he had come to deliver a consignment of FICN with a face value of Rs 6 lakh.

The arrested persons revealed to the police that the prevailing market rate is Rs. 40-50 for each Rs. 100 note of fake currency.

“As large transactions are still made in cash, hence, there is huge demand of fake currency in Delhi-NCR,” said a police officer.

“The currency notes have most of the security features and it is impossible to differentiate with naked eyes. They further told that all the new security features introduced by the government are quickly updated in fake currency notes also,” he added.

Sehzad, Fazullah and Rehman told police that they used to receive FICN consignments from Bihar and then sold it to retail customers in smaller quantities of Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000.

Lauding the government’s move to declare Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes as illegal tender, Delhi Police officers said that it will help curb circulation of Fake Indian Currency
Notes (FICN) in the country and city.

However, apart from fake notes, circulation of counterfeit coins in Delhi and neighbouring areas has also added another aspect to the problem.

Last month, two illegal factories in Bawana and Shiv Vihar which were minting counterfeit coins were busted by the Delhi Police.

Investigations following the raids on the factories revealed that the accused were circulating the coins in vegetable markets, malls, toll booths and the outskirts of Delhi-NCR. Police also discovered that the counterfeit coins were meant to be supplied to shopkeepers across the city who need small coins in abundance.

Police said the accused made a profit of Rs 7 from every Rs 10 coin that they minted. He added that most people who got the coins could not tell they were fake.

The operation in Bawana’s industrial area, had been on for the last six months, during which thousands of fake coins had been minted.

Investigations following the raids on the factories revealed that the accused were circulating the coins in vegetable markets, malls, toll booths and the outskirts of Delhi-NCR. Police also discovered that the counterfeit coins were meant to be supplied to shopkeepers across the city who need small coins in abundance.

Sources in Delhi Police’s Special Cell said many more such factories may be operating clandestinely in and around Delhi.

RBI had recently introduced security features in bank notes, but counterfeit coins are usually not under the police radar as they are considered being relatively smaller rackets.
“The recent fake coins which were seized had Rs 10 written in the centre rather than on both sides of the metal. Furthermore, the font sizes of these coins are also bigger compared to the geinuine ones,” said a senior Delhi Police officer.

The police are finding it extremely difficult to keep a check on such factories as they are able to operate in small rooms and hide among the industrial areas of Delhi.

“Sometimes it’s difficult to trace these factories. There have been cases of such factories operating from Bawana Industrial Area where they are able to conceal their act ivies by operating with legitimate factories. They don’t even require much manpower and don’t require machines which operate on high power,” the officer adds.

The fake coin racket also has an international connection. In November 2012, the Delhi Police Crime Branch had arrested three people near Sarai Kale Khan Inter-State Bus Terminal and seized 30,000 fake Rs 5 coins, with a face value of Rs 1.50 lakh, from them. The accused revealed to the police that they were part of an ‘international gang’ involved in minting counterfeit Rs 5 Indian coins in Nepal before supplying them to India.

Investigators of the recent fake coin making factories case suspect that the masterminds of the units Swikaar Luthra and Upkaar Luthra, both brothers, have perhaps fled to Nepal.

The Luthra brothers were the ones who had hired one Rajesh Kumar as the manager of one of the factories in Bawana. They had given him the task of hiring workers for the factory.

Police said to ensure that employees don’t become suspicious, the brothers would pose as Reserve Bank of India officials and claim they had bagged a contract to manufacture coins.