Insider role: Bank employee helped gang deposit fake currency notes, say police

NEW DELHI: The investigation into the module that was allegedly printing and circulating fake currency notes has revealed that the notes were being deposited in a bank through a staffer who colluded with the gang for commission. The revelation was made during the interrogation of three men arrested in the case.

Police have initiated a manhunt for two other suspects, who were allegedly facilitating the deposits in the bank, sources said.

While raiding a hideout in Uttar Pradesh’s Budaun, the cops found that the suspects, one of whom was a unani practitioner, were running a fake nursing home in the name of a prominent hospital out of a two-storey house and using it as a front for printing fake notes.

“The ‘doctor’ would see patients on the ground floor, prescribe them random medicines and the notes were printed on the top floor,” an official said. Police are also probing the links from where the accused had sourced the raw materials like dyes.

The 26-year-old unani practitioner, Asif Ali, and two of his associates have been arrested for allegedly making and circulating fake notes with a cumulative face value of Rs 5 crore over the past five years. The fake currency of the face value of Rs 50 lakh was seized from them. The complete setup to print FICN (fake Indian currency notes), including raw materials, high-quality laptops, printers and other equipment, was also unearthed. Police said the fake notes were well made and difficult to differentiate from real ones at a quick glance.

One of the associates was Sartaj Khan (27), a cyber cafe owner. Ali and Khan had brought in another friend, Danish Ali (25), to help them with logistics. All three were from Budaun.

The arrests were made by a team of ACP Sanjay Dutt and others after they had got an input about Ali. On December 30, police were tipped off that the gang would go to Akshardham Metro Station in east Delhi to deliver a huge quantity of FICN to their associates in Delhi. A trap was laid and the suspects were arrested when they were travelling in an SUV. The accused have been remanded in police custody.