Goat sale leads to busting of fake currency racket

Surat: A routine livestock transaction in the Sachin area led police to a cache of high-quality fake Indian currency notes (FICN) worth Rs 1.61 lakh, with four men arrested and remanded in police custody as investigators probe the source and possible circulation of the counterfeit notes.

Sachin police arrested the four persons for allegedly possessing and using FICN after a complaint was received linked to the purchase of two goats. Police recovered 322 notes of Rs 500 denomination, with a face value of Rs 1.61 lakh, from the accused. A local court remanded them to three days’ police custody for interrogation.

In a preliminary examination, Forensic Science Laboratory experts found that the notes were of high quality and difficult to detect without special tools. “The notes have watermarks and prints resembling the silver strip as well,” a police officer said.

The men arrested are Mohammad Ulfat Alam Sattar Shaikh, 32, his brother Jamal, 34, Nazir Ansari, 33, and Raees Rasid Sadiq, 49. Ulfat runs a stitching unit in Sachin, where Jamal and the other two accused are also employed. Nazir is a truck driver and Raees is a tailor. All four live in Limbayat.

Police said Ulfat, Jamal and Nazir are from Naitand and Luppi villages in Giridih district of Jharkhand, while Raees is from Mohari in Uttar Pradesh.

The case came to light after Bhawarlal Bhagariya, 35, a resident of Bhilwara in Rajasthan, sold two male goats to the accused for Rs 50,000 on May 17 near Sachin Tran Rasta. He was paid in 100 notes of Rs 500 each.

When Bhagariya checked the cash the next day, he noticed that several notes had identical serial numbers. Suspecting 97 of the 100 notes to be fake, he approached Sachin police with a complaint.

During the probe, police recovered 20 fake notes from Ulfat’s online product dispatch unit and 205 from his house. Some notes were allegedly thrown into water to destroy them, while a few Rs 500 notes were found partially burnt, allegedly after Jamal tried to set them on fire.

Police also seized phones and a motorcycle used by the accused. The goats were recovered as well.

“It is yet not clear how the accused sourced the notes. We will investigate this during custodial interrogation,” a police officer said.