Bangla, Nepal borders porus
Face value of the seized money is worth over `1 cr
police Avinash Mohanty said, “In any instance, if five or more pieces are found in a single transaction, an FIR is registered for investigation based on the report submitted by the RBI. The notes are further sent to the Currency Printing Press at Mysore to verify their status and then further action is taken.”
During every quarter, a State Level Security Committee meeting is held in order to discuss the status of detection and reporting of the counterfeit notes by the bankers, police, and the RBI, according to Mr Mohanty.
He said, “The total counterfeit cases received so far amounts to around `10 crore. Most of the complaints are of non-FIR status as even in cases when 10 persons exchange one fake currency note each in a day, will also have a non-FIR status. The FICN team is investigating the complaints and many of them end in closure, as there would be no evidence about the person who exchanges the notes.”
The FICN team officials said that five FIRs have been registered since January this year, where the notional value of the counterfeit currency Bangladesh and Nepal borders are the routes chosen by FICN racketeers to pump in fake currency.
A police official from the central crime station said that proper checks were not implemented at the borders there as hundreds of labourers cross the country seeking work, and are generally not checked.
The sleuths of the FICN (Fake Indian Currency Notes) Team of the Detective department of Hyderabad, who are looking into the cases of smuggling of counterfeit currency notes, said that the villages located near Malda is over `76,12,700. There are 50 other nonFIR complaints where the seized notes have a notional value of `32,48,020.
FICN team inspector Y. Prakash Reddy said, “The complaints received by the team are in West Bengal, which is close to the Indo-Bangla border, have been the favourite route for racketeers to pump in the fake currency notes into the country.
From there, the notes are diverted to various metropolitan cities through trains.
There were several instances, where the investigation of the smugglers led to the Indo-Bangla and IndoNepal borders.
Even detectives of agencies like the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, National Investigation Agency, which have made the biggest hauls, also came to the same conclusion, police officials said. about demonetised currency. The notes were received by various banks across the state during demonetisation. It is two years since demonetisation, but still the RBI is finding counterfeit notes that were sent by the banks.”