JOIN USThe National Investigation Agency (NIA) and other key Central Agencies’ have been alerted and their assistance sought as a fake currency racket busted in neighbouring Puducherry, seems to have “international ramifications” and targeted at “destabilizing” the Indian economy.
Ismail, an accused arrested by the Puducherry UT Police while trying to “pump” the fake currency notes, hails from Jharkhand and had confessed to having picked up the wand of counterfeit notes from Malda in Bengal, Puducherry IGP J K Sharma told Deccan Herald on Saturday over phone.
The counterfeit currency notes purporting to be Indian Rupees to the extent of Rs 1.90 lakh, in bundles of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denominations, were seized from the accused and further investigations are on, he said.
Initial interrogations reveal that Ismail is part of a wider racket of counterfeit currency operators, said Sharma. The accused had reached Puducherry from Chennai on Jan 17 and was arrested the next day there when he was found trying to injecting the fake notes into the local cash stream.
Two locals, a fruit seller and an auto-rickshaw driver had raised an alarm in front of the JIPMER Hospital in Puducherry when Ismail was in the act, Sharma said.