The Hindu : Front Page : Now fake currency arrives via Delhi-Lahore bus

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Monday, Apr 09, 2007
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Now fake currency arrives via Delhi-Lahore bus

Staff Reporter

One arrested, counterfeit currency worth Rs.50,000 seized

NEW DELHI: A 48-year-old man has been arrested at Nandnagri here on charges of circulating counterfeit currency notes. The police claim to have recovered fake currency worth Rs. 50,000 that was smuggled in on board the Delhi-Lahore bus.

The Inter-State Cell of the Crime Branch received a tip-off over this past Friday that Shamim, a resident of Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, had been circulating counterfeit currency notes of Rs. 1,000 and Rs.500 denominations in the Capital.

A decoy customer was sent by the police to strike a deal with him.

Shamim came to a bus shelter at Nandnagri on Friday afternoon to deliver the consignment when he was arrested. Shamim had allegedly demanded Rs. 25,000 in exchange for Rs. 50,000 counterfeit notes. During interrogation, he purportedly disclosed that the notes had been smuggled in from Pakistan on board the Delhi-Lahore bus.

The police said the notes were of very good quality and it was difficult to distinguish them from the real. The seized notes are part of a consignment brought by a woman who had visited Pakistan for 20 days recently.

He told interrogators that he procured notes worth Rs. 1 lakh from the woman through an agent at Kabootar Market in the Walled City here.

He then went back to Muzaffarnagar where he circulated counterfeit notes worth Rs. 50,000.

According to the police, Shamim was earlier arrested twice on charges of circulating forged currency notes at Panipat in Haryana.

He was also arrested for smuggling of arms and drug peddling in Uttar Pradesh.

The police are trying to trace the agent through whom he had procured the notes.

Efforts are also on to identify the woman who had allegedly brought the consignment from Pakistan.

"There have been cases in the past where fake currency notes were smuggled in either on board the Samjhauta Express train or through the Indo-Pakistan border along Punjab. However, it now appears that the Delhi-Lahore bus is also being used to smuggle in fake notes," said a police officer.

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