Rs 2,000 fake notes with face value of Rs 10 lakh seized from Malda smuggler

NEW DELHI: In the biggest seizure of fake currency since demonetisation, Special Cell of Delhi Police has arrested a Malda-based smuggler and seized fake notes of Rs 2,000 denomination with face value of Rs 10 lakh.

What is worrying is that the fake currency printers have managed to copy security features on the real notes and they cannot be noticed with naked eyes.The similarities include serial numbers, which have increasing fonts, seven angular bleed lines and Rs 2,000 written vertically on the left side of the note.
“The recovered FICN appear to have been printed in a sophisticated unit. They have almost all the security features, including thread and watermark. It is very difficult for a common person to distinguish the fake ones from the original currency,” DCP (special cell) Sanjeev Yadav said.
The accused, Khalik Sheikh (32), was roped into the trade three years ago by one Ashfaq, a Bangladeshi currently living in Malda, West Bengal. “Sheikh used to buy the fake notes from Ashfaq by paying Rs 40 per Rs 100 FICN and supplied it to his contacts for Rs 50-60. He has confessed to having delivered around five consignments with face value of over Rs 20 lakh in Delhi and UP,” Yadav said. A hunt is on for Ashfaq and his Pak-based associates.
On January 21, the cell got a tip-off that a fake note supplier would come to Anand Vihar railway station to deliver a consignment. A team led by ACP Manoj Dixit and inspectors Vivekanand Pathak and Kuldeep Singh apprehended the suspect.
Police said the last four fake currency busts, including the second largest seizure of Rs 8 lakh made by the same team in May last year, had notes of Rs 2,000 denomination.
Sources said that the ISI-backed FICN printing modules in Peshawar and Karachi are frantically printing notes of Rs 2,000 denomination after their “engineers” managed to prepare almost similar dyes. FICN kingpin, 57-year-old Iqbal Kana, and underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s Man Friday, Aftab Batki, are at the forefront of this business.
Kana, a supposed Peshawar-based garments and cosmetics trader, runs a majority of syndicates smuggling fake notes into India since the late 1990s. Other key players include Aslam Choudhary, Subha Bhai, Sheikh Safi and Sikander. The printers are currently focussing on the Rs 2,000 note due to higher margins to suppliers and more amount of fake currency getting pumped in with every consignment.