Rs 16,000 cr in fakes, ‘printed in Pakistan’ and circulated all over
The face value of fake Indian currency notes, or FICN, in circulation is over Rs 16,000 crore, the National Investigation Agency estimates. Such notes, believed to have been routed from Pakistan, have been seized not only from India but also from Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Holland, says an NIA report, which also names Denmark, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand and the UAE among the countries from where FICN is being sent.
The NIA, the CBI, the DRI and police have detected only 28 to 30 per cent of fake currency actually circulating in the market, according to an estimate by the Central Economic Intelligence Bureau (CEIB), which carried out a study last December.
“The quantum of fake currency floating around in the country is enough to keep the terrorist machinery well-oiled and running. The closest that one possibly gets to a figure is the one calculated by a government committee in 2011 — over Rs 16,000 crore,” says the NIA report (a copy with The Indian Express).
The suspects
New Delhi is convinced the fake notes are sourced from Pakistan. FICN was one of the key issues discussed during the March 2011 home secretary-level talks between the two countries in Islamabad. Since then, Indian agencies have registered 19 cases with “strong evidence” to suggest the currency is being printed in Pakistan with the support of the government.
India has identified four major players in Pakistan, apart from don Dawood Ibrahim, as being behind the supply. It has given Pakistan a dossier on the four. Subba Bhai sends notes through Nepal. Iqbal Kana, who hails from Kairana in UP, has been supplying to various parts of the country, including Delhi where police in January seized Rs 2.25 crore that he had allegedly sent, and the south where the NIA arrested five of his associates trying to expand their base. The other two suspected operatives, Mohammad Safi and Imran Ahmed, are said to be sending notes through Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal and western India, sometimes using the sea route too.
“The FICN is being pumped either with the help of active terrorists infiltrating through our borders or with the help of couriers who travel to Dubai, Bangladesh, Nepal and other countries and then supply the FICN to border smugglers in exchange for a proportionate amount of genuine Indian currency,” the NIA report says.
An NIA official explained how such notes are valued: “From the questioning of those arrested, it has emerged that the price of a fake Rs 100 note in Pakistan varies between Rs 26 and 30 . From there, Kana and others supply these to middlemen in border areas at Rs 30-35, depending on the quality of each note. The notes are then given to buyers in India at Rs 40-45. All along, Pakistan’s ISI plays a pivotal role.”
The NIA is learnt to have identified a certain Major Tayeeb, who handles “the FICN division” of the ISI, besides non-state actors involved in the supply. During the probe into the 26/11 attacks, the NIA found David Headley too had been provided with FICN by the ISI for his recce.
The government has decided to classify offences involving high-value FICN as terror acts with an amendment to the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.
The signature
“Many covert features of genuine Indian currency were successfully imitated,” says a report by the Reserve Bank of India after forensic tests on FICN seized by the NIA. It says these features can be achieved only through “sophisticated machinery which is sold only to sovereign governments, as revealed in the examination of experts of the Bank Notes Press, Mysore”. The government is likely to hand over the analysis to Pakistan.
“It can be concluded that the notes have been printed on highly sophisticated machines which a common man cannot acquire, since such machines involve huge capital investment,” says a report by a committee set up in 2011 at the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Ltd. “The pulp [has been] found to be 100 per cent rag in the FICN, which is normally used in making currency papers. The perfection of window and watermarks formation indicates the manufacture of FICN paper on a regular currency-making machine, which can only be owned by a country/state.”
Tests found the FICN had an imitation of a latent image — the vertical band that shows the denominational value in numerals, and which is visible only when held at eye level. Experts checked the legal tenders of neighbouring countries and found only those in Pakistan have a latent image. Also, the numbers on each note’s right panel were similar to those on Pakistan’s legal tenders. There were other similarities between the FICN and Pakistan’s legal tenders — the same pH value for chemical nature, the same density in g/sq m, and clear signs of having been printed on the same Simultan dry offset press.
The supply
Security agencies have found that the racketeers have been using migrant workers as couriers. A case in point is Akbar Sheikh, arrested by the CBI at Guwahati railway station. Working for a certain Hakim based in Malda, he was carrying Rs 4.99 lakh in fake notes of denominations Rs 1,000 and Rs 500. Interrogation of those arrested has shown that most of these migrants, who cross the border for various purchases, had been using fake notes for such transactions.
Another mode of supply through migrants emerged following the arrest of some workers by the Maharashtra anti-terrorism squad. The ATS found that money was being deposited into bank accounts, and the accused would use that to buy fake currency in small batches and put these into circulation.
The NIA report says notes have also been recovered at international airports from diplomatic bags — containers in which countries send material to missions abroad. “In seizures [from] international airports of Bangladesh and Nepal, such fake currency notes have been seized from diplomatic bags from Pakistan,” the report reads. “It has also been observed that Malaysia, Bangkok, Sri Lanka and Singapore have been used for shipment of high-quality FICN.”
Away, 2011
Rs 1 cr seized from Abdullah of Pakistan on landing at Dhaka airport, January 16
Rs 35 lakh from Sultan Mehboob Ali on arrival at Kathmandu airport from Karachi via Bahrain, February 22, later linked to Pakistan-based FICN racketeers Farooq, Shafi, Haji Saheb
Rs 45.79 lakh from Anuvat Sahib of Thailand and Ishwor Shah of Nepal on landing in Kathmandu from Bangkok, April 17, travelled with Thai passports
Rs 30.99 lakh from Syed Sardar Hussain of Pakistan national on landing in Kathmandu from Karachi via Abu Dhabi, May 4
Rs 30.99 lakh seized from Shamim Fatima of Pakistan in Dhaka, May 15
Rs 7 lakh from Amjid Hussain in Amsterdam, July 1, travelling from Nepal on UK passportRs 94.37 lakh from two Vietnamese nationals, Haroon of Pakistan, Md Ismail Sayad of Nepal and Nanu Prakash Ashok of India on arrival in Kathmandu from Bangkok, July 1
Rs 17 lakh From Monirul Islam of Bangladesh in Bangladesh, August 11
Rs akh from Shamim Naz of Pakistan on landing in Dhaka, October 10, travelled from Abu Dhabi
Rs 1.22 crore from a Philippines national in Kathmandu, December 21, had hidden it in baby powder bottles
Rs. 5.76 lakh from Naeem Khan of Afghanistan in Afghanistan, December 25, sent from Pakistan by Sher Jan of Peshawar
…and 2012
Rs 5 lakh seized from Mahendra Gupta and Jiwachh Kumar, both of Nepal, in Nepal, February 9
Rs 14.70 lakh from Mohd Zafar Alam and Sheikh Mohd Sanaullah of Nepal in Nepal, February 16
Rs 19.70 lakh from Shoukat Ali, carrying Pakistan passport, at Chittagong airport, February 24
Rs 10 crore from Maulana Imran aka Commando, in Dhaka, March 28, notes had been sent from Karachi to Chittagong by sea and then to Dhaka by truck along with a garments consignment
Rs 98.10 lakh from Pham Van Dhin of Vietnam in Kathmandu on arrival from Bangkok, April 3, original source named as Aslam Shera in Thailand.
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