Two held with Rs 5 lakh fake currency

Two persons were arrested and fake Indian currency notes with a face value of Rs five lakh were seized from them here today, a Crime Branch official said.
Rajvir Singh alias Karnail Jat, a native of Gurdaspur in Punjab and Jaiprakash aka Jacky, a resident of Jharkhand were today nabbed from near Himalaya Mall here and fake notes with a face value of over Rs 5 lakh were recovered from them, Crime Branch Joint Commissioner of Police A K Sharma told reporters.
"Prima facie it appears that the duo were carriers working for one Uttam alias Purshottam Bengali, a native of Jharkhand and Rafiq Sheesh Mohammad, a resident of Dani Limda here, but now settled in Ludhiana," Sharma said.

According to him, around 401 and 199 notes of Rs 1,000 Rs 500 denominations respectively were seized from the duo.
"After the preliminary investigations, it appears that Uttam and Rafiq had handed over the fake notes of over Rs 5 lakh to the two carriers for circulation in Gujarat," he said.
According to him, Rajbir and Uttam had served a jail term in Jamnagar in the past, while Rafiq was earlier lodged in Sabarmati jail. "Rajbir served a jail term under IPC 307 (attempt to murder) in Jamnagar jail and was released about a year ago. He came in contact with Rafiq, who appears to be the kingpin of the fake currency circulation," Sharma said.

Such a huge cache of fake notes is usually circulated in lots of Rs 10-15 thousands through an organised network of carriers and agents. The carriers get rupees one lakh for every two lakh passed on to agents, Sharma said.

"It is often circulated at places where the deals are shady, like gambling dens, property deals, where chances of revelation of fake currency are low as black money is involved," he said.
The fake currency seized seems to have been printed in Pakistan and pumped into India through Malda in West Bengal, from Bangladesh, police officials said.
The water mark on fake notes was displaced and the silver thread did not bear RBI name, a key feature of the genuine notes, Sharma said adding that differentiating them from genuine ones was a tough task.

Further investigation is on, he said.