Crooks with 'ISI links' held

HYDERABAD: Police on Monday arrested four persons with suspected links to the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence, who were in possession of counterfeit currency notes worth Rs 2.21 lakh.
The arrested persons have been identified as Syed Bin Mohammed, 29; Syed Nazeem, 62; Syed Rehaman, 20, and Mohammed Qamaruddin. Police also seized two cell phones and two motorcycles used by the gang for distributing fake currency notes.
According to police, the arrested persons have links with Aftab Batki and Babu Gaithan, key links in the Dawood Ibrahim gang, which is involved in making and circulating fake Indian currency notes with the aim of destabilising the Indian economy.
Syed Mohammed, who is a real estate broker by profession, is a native of Barkas and was working for Babu, who is also from the same place. He also arranges visiting visas for persons from Hyderabad to go to Dubai. These people, police say, contact Babu in Dubai, who in turn gives them fake currency notes to be handed over to Babu’s contacts in India.
Syed Nayeem was sent by Syed Mohammed to Dubai apparently to visit his second wife, who is working there. Syed Nayeem contacted Babu in Dubai and was given counterfeit currency notes worth Rs 2.5 lakh, all in Rs 500 notes, on June 9. Syed Nayeem came back to the city and got in touch with Syed Mohammed and Qamaruddin on the instructions of Babu.
Syed Nayeem was instructed by Babu to give the fake currency notes to ‘prospective customers’, on an exchange ratio of 1:2 between original notes and fake notes. Acting on these instructions, Syed Nayeem gave Rs 75,000 to Qamaruddin for distribution.
The arrests where made when police, acting on a tip-off, conducted a raid at the residence of Syem Mohammed on Monday. Based on the information provided by Mohammed, police were able to arrest Qamaruddin, who stays in Talabkatta.
According to the commissioners task force team that made the arrests, the notes looked original except for very minute details that are hard for an inexperienced person to identify.