Fake ₹2,000 notes worth ₹4.49 crore recovered from financier in Gujarat

AHMEDABAD: In what can be called the biggest seizure of fake currency after demonetisation, the police have recovered counterfeit notes of ₹2,000 worth ₹4.49 crore from a Rajkot-based financier.

The counterfeit notes were recovered in two phases, the police said.

On Friday, 19,661 fake currency notes of ₹2,000 (worth ₹3,93,22,000) were seized from boxes kept in an ‘abandoned’ car. The car was registered in the name of a financier, Ketan Dave.

Earlier, the police had seized ₹57,16,000 worth fake 2,000-rupee currency notes from Dave’s office after a ₹50 lakh forgery case was registered against him by a citybased scrap dealer Nitin Ajani on February 23. Dave and three others were arrested and sent to judicial custody last month after the haul. According to the police, during interrogation, Dave said he had printed fake notes worth more than ₹1 crore, but the money was set ablaze by his employee Parth Terieya and friend Umesh Gajjar.

When cops grilled Gajjar, he told them that Dave used to hide fake notes in his cars. During investigation, police found out that one of Dave’s cars registered in Ahmedabad was missing.

The vehicle was found parked inside a housing society on the 150 Feet Ring Road in Rajkot on Friday. Fake currency notes worth ₹3.94 crore, all in new ₹2,000 notes, were recovered from the car.

It took cops an entire night to count the money.

So far, a total of six people have been arrested.