India, Bangladesh resolve to jointly fight fake currency menace with fullest cooperation

India and Bangladesh on Wednesday resolved to jointly fight the cross-border menace of fake currency with fullest cooperation and stressed the need for exchange of intelligence regarding gangs, racketeers involved in its smuggling and circulation, an official statement said.

The fifth Indo-Bangladesh Joint Task Force meeting, which concluded here on Wednesday, emphasised to further strengthen the bilateral mechanism to curb smuggling and circulation of fake currency notes.

The Joint Task Force of India and Bangladesh was formed in 2014 to combat the smuggling of Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN).

The Bangladeshi delegation was headed by Y M Belalur Rahman, Deputy Inspector General, Bangladesh Police, whereas the Indian side was led by Anil Shukla, Inspector General, National Investigation Agency (NIA).

Both the countries resolved to jointly fight the menace of fake currency with the fullest cooperation, the statement said.

The heads of both the delegations emphasised the need for better coordination to curb the growing menace of Fake Currency Notes (FCN) and FICN, and also stressed the need for exchange of intelligence regarding gangs, racketeers involved in the smuggling and circulation of FCN, it said.

During the meeting, India and Bangladesh raised their concerns about the illegal smuggling and circulation of FCN and its destabilising influence on the economy of the two nations, the statement said.

India, it said, highlighted the major cases of detection of FICN smuggling and seizures in Bangladesh and gave details about the criminals in FICN syndicates and gang leaders of FICN rackets.

Both the sides emphasised the need to develop a mechanism to share authentic information about FCN/FICN operatives across the border of both nations, the statement said.

During the meeting, Nodal Officers from both the sides were nominated to serve as focal contact points for sharing of information regarding FICN operatives, exchange of interrogation reports, dossiers of the accused among other things through quickest means using information technology, it said.

India suggested that Bangladesh should conduct an operation on suspicious bank accounts of bordering areas of Bangladesh through Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit of Bangladesh Bank to monitor suspicious accounts having unusual movement of funds, such as dummy accounts or mule accounts and raise a red-flag for further analysis to dismantle the network of FICN racketeers, it said.

It was also highlighted that during detection, FICN operatives based in third countries beyond India and Bangladesh add a challenge in curbing the menace, the statement added.