Seizure of fake currency from Pak, Nepal doubles this year

There has been a steady increase in the amount of fake Indian currency being smuggled from Pakistan and Nepal in the past four years (between 2007 and November 2010) and the total value of the fake currency recovered in these four years has been over Rs 3.4 crore.

Security agencies believe the situation is similar at the India-Bangladesh border and it is only in 2010 that there has been a slight decline in fake currency seized at the border.

“Fake currency being smuggled from Pakistan and Nepal has almost doubled this year, compared to last year. We can’t be complacent about the India-Bangladesh border because the decline in recovery between 2009 and 2010 is only Rs 6 lakh of fake Indian notes,” said a senior home ministry official.

Sources revealed that the business of pushing fake currency in India was no longer limited to currency notes of denomination Rs 1,000 and Rs 500. Senior officials had informed that border guarding forces had also seized noted in denominations Rs 100 and Rs 50.

Of the borders India shares with Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, the most notorious has been the western front, where more than Rs 2.62 crore worth of fake currency, almost 76 per cent of the total, has been recovered. This year alone, the Border Security Force, along with other central and state agencies, recovered a whopping Rs 1.32 crore worth of fake currency notes coming from Pakistan, while recovery in 2009 was worth Rs 64 lakh and Rs 63 lakh in 2008.

The case is no different at the India-Nepal border, where fake currency worth Rs 4.54 lakh was recovered this year, in comparison to Rs 2.45 lakh in 2009 and Rs 1.1 lakh in 2008.

“We are worried because these are the total seizures that have been made. We are not aware of the actual fake money that the smugglers managed to be bring inside the country. Although border fencing has helped bring down the menace, the trade continues through Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat routes,” said a senior official. He added the India-Nepal border was too porous to curb the menace completely.