Have counterfeiters cracked ₹2000 note?

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police on Thursday seized Rs 6.6 lakh in counterfeit currency notes , their largest seizure since demonetisation since November last year, and claimed that the inflow of “high quality” fake Rs 2,000 notes has picked up in recent months.

Last month, Delhi police arrested two men with counterfeit currency worth Rs 5.98 lakh.

Last Tuesday, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had arrested four persons from Howrah railway station and recovered Rs 9.1 lakh fake currency from them. Kashid, a 54-year-old man arrested with the counterfeit currency on Thursday, claims to have already supplied fake notes worth Rs 2 crore in the last four-five months since he resumed business after demonetisation, PK Kushwah, DCP (special cell), said on Friday. The two men arrested last month in Delhi are his associates.

All the counterfeit notes seized were of Rs 2000 denomination and had most of the security features of the new currency notes, including the watermark and the security thread.

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation last November, he listed eliminating counterfeit currency as one of the objectives of the exercise. The new Rs 2,000 note pushed into the market after demonetisation was believed to be difficult to replicate.

In April, the government informed Parliament in April that a total of Rs 5.6 crore, all in Rs fake 2,000 notes, had been seized by different law-enforcement agencies across India after demonetisation.

The Delhi Police said the notes seized near Anand Vihar bus terminal on Thursday were “very similar in appearance and texture” to genuine Indian currency.