Fake currency notes of over Rs 2 lakh face value seized; man held for printing them in Maharashtra's Raigad

Thane: Police have arrested a man for allegedly printing fake currency notes in Panvel taluka of Maharashtra's Raigad district, and seized from him counterfeit notes of more than Rs 2 lakh face value after conducting a raid, an official said on Friday.

The 26-year-old accused, identified as Prafulla Govind Patil, had learnt the technique of printing fake currency notes primarily by watching YouTube videos, he said.

"Acting on a tip-off, a police team of the Central Crime Unit raided a room located in a chawl at Palekhurd village in Taloja MIDC area on May 15 and counterfeit notes were recovered from the room," Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime), Navi Mumbai, Ajaykumar Landge, said.

"The accused had taken the room on rent and with the use of two costly scanners, he carried out the task of printing fake notes. He first scanned the genuine Rs 50, Rs 100 and Rs 200 currency notes on a cotton paper, slit them and pasted the silver/green radium strips on it and pressed it with iron before selling them," he said.

During the raid, the police recovered more than 1,440 counterfeit notes - 574 notes of Rs 50 denomination, 33 notes of Rs 100 denomination and 856 notes of Rs 200 denomination - collectively of Rs 2,03,200 face value, the official said.

The accused had failed in Class 9 exam and worked as a labourer in a company that procured old computers as well as printers and sold them after refurbishing them. Apart from the YouTube videos, he learnt the technique of printing the counterfeit notes at his workplace, the police said.

An offence has been registered against the accused at the Taloja police station, they said.