5 held with fake ₹2,000 notes worth Rs 57L

In a major breakthrough, Kolkata Police on Thursday recovered counterfeit high value Indian currency worth Rs 57.74 lakh from five persons when they had gone to buy a mobile phone from a shop in Watgunge.

All the confiscated fake notes are of Rs 2,000 denomination and the haul is reportedly the biggest ever catch from Kolkata.

Vishal Garg, Joint Commissioner of police (Crime), said: "We are trying to find out where the counterfeit notes were printed and whether the accused are having any international links."

Four of the arrested people are residents of Howrah while one is from Bankura. The accused – Manuar Molla alias Ujjal, Abul Kalam Azad alias Suraj, Sheikh Eklash Ahmed, Balai Mondal and Syed Rehan – will be produced before the Alipore Court on Friday.

The police will plead before the Court for the remand of all five accused so as to interrogate them to know the location from where they managed to get fake currency notes in such large quantities.

Interestingly, each bundle of the notes had bands having State Bank of India printed on them. It was reportedly done to make one believe that the notes were original.

The five accused had gone to a shop in Watgunge to buy a mobile phone on Thursday afternoon and tried to pay with some of the fake notes.

The shopkeeper, however, easily understood that those were counterfeit notes and tactfully delayed the process of completing the transaction. Meanwhile, he somehow managed to inform the matter to the police.

Soon, police personnel reached the spot and checked the bags carried by the accused. Police found the fake notes in their bags and brought them to the city police's headquarters at Lalbazar after arresting them.

After preliminary investigation, police came to know that Manuar is the kingpin of the racket and there were police cases against him in Odisha, Ranchi and Mumbai.

It may be mentioned that a few days ago fake Rs 2,000 notes were found in Malda.

The police are trying to ascertain the location where the notes, which were seized on Thursday, were printed.