Fake currency: Arrested Bengal resident part of Bangladesh-linked international racket

Kolkata (The Uttam Hindu): A resident of Kaliachak of Malda district in West Bengal, who was arrested on Thursday with a huge consignment of fake Indian currency notes, is part of an international racket involving Bangladesh from where the FICN originated. The resident has been identified as Manwar Sheikh and he used to supply fake notes in Maharashtra after collecting them through a Bangaleshi link.

Sources said during interrogation by the sleuths of the special task force (STF) of Kolkata, who arrested him from a bus depot at Esplanade in central Kolkata in the morning, the accused confessed that the FICN consignment that he brought to Kolkata was not meant for circulation in the city but to be taken to Nasik in Maharashtra. Sources added that Sheikh runs a thriving fish trading business at Nasik, which involves huge cash transactions. His intention was the circulation of those FICNs through cash transactions. The investigating officials believe that the role of the arrested accused is mainly that of a “circulation agent”. He used to receive the FICN consignment coming from Bangladesh at Malda, first bringing them to Kolkata and then taking the same to Nasik to get them circulated through cash transactions involved with his fish trading business.

Sources said that the investigating officials were really surprised at the paper and printing quality of the FICN consignment seized from the accused, where it was almost impossible for the common men to identify them as fake. The seized FICN were in Rs 500 denomination and the total face value of the seized consignment was Rs 3,00,000. The investigating officials believe that the arrested accused is part of a major international FICN racket and are also not ruling out the involvement of terror groups there. During the last couple of years, there had been a series of FICN hauls by sleuths in Kolkata and in most cases, the arrested accused persons were residents of Malda district. A few months back, a special court of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Kolkata, had sentenced seven persons to seven years of rigorous imprisonment in relation to their involvement in a cross-border FICN racket. The eighth accused person in the case, Abdul Rahim, identified as a Bangladeshi citizen, continued to be untraceable.