NIA’s first undercover op led to haul of banned notes

NEW DELHI: On a hot June day almost five months ago, investigators of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) launched an operation targeted at stopping terror groups active in the Kashmir Valley from exchanging currency invalidated in last November’s demonetisation drive. The agency’s investigations had revealed an ongoing attempt to do that.

It had interrogated some suspects and informers and found reason to believe that “some of the persons and entities (under the scanner) were sitting over a pile of demonetised currency notes of ₹500 and ₹1,000 that they intended to illegally exchange with valid currency as the window provided for conversion was long over”, according to a senior NIA official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. And thus began an undercover operation to draw the demonetised money out in the open. It culminated on November 7 with the NIA announcing recovery of ₹36.34 crore in demonetised currency notes and the arrest of nine persons in the national Capital.

“In terms of scale, it can be termed as the first major undercover operation of the agency,” said the official, adding that the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the US does it on regular basis in terror and drug cases and has a legal framework for mounting undercover operations.

The NIA doesn’t, although it has been demanding the same from the government, which, last year, indicated that it could consider working on a change in the law to allow this.

The NIA’s operation in this instance revolved around an undercover agent — agency officials will only say this person was working on behalf of the NIA — pretending to be a money launderer. Through its channels of informers, NIA facilitated a meeting between Srinagar resident Mushtaq Ahmed Sheikh, who wanted to exchange a significant amount in demonetised notes, and the agent.

Over the course of the next few months, the agent had many meetings with Sheikh, who, it turned out, was in touch with others who claimed they could help in the process of exchanging the demonetised notes. The network included Kolkata resident Mohammad Rafiq Ali Sheikh and Mumbai-based Deepak Toprani. It also included a prominent Srinagar-based hotelier whom the NIA official refused to name because he is currently under the agency’s scanner.

Toprani, 60, presented himself as a former director general of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence but NIA sleuths allege the Mumbai resident is basically just another money launderer.

Two other Mumbai residents, Vinod Shreedhar Shetty and Jaswinder Singh, were also involved. “Toprani had formed a trust with two Delhi residents, Mange Ram and Pradeep Chauhan.

The trust was being used as conduit for illegal exchange of demonetised currency with new currency. Toprani works on percentage basis,” claimed the NIA official mentioned in the first instance.