New Delhi: Pakistan’s conspiracy to destabilise the Indian economy by flooding it with fake currency notes is being carried out from Quetta, the capital of its troubled Balochistan province.
Indian Intelligence agencies allege that the city has become a hub of printing and distribution of fake Indian currency notes.
The Times of India reports that the Central Bureau of India, in a note sent to security agencies and the Finance Ministry, has warned that fake Indian currency notes are “supplied by the Pakistan government press (at Quetta) free of cost to Dubai-based counterfeiters who, in turn, smuggle it into India using various means”.
The newspaper reports that the CBI is worried about the possibility of ISI-backed counterfeiters gaining access to ‘‘security papers’’ used to print genuine notes.
Fake currency is ‘‘pushed into India by ISI through all possible channels using smugglers, underworld gangs, terrorists and general air/rail passengers.’’ Fake notes are hid in music systems, crockery boxes and washing machines, and sent to India through ‘carrier’ air passengers who were paid Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 for carrying a consignment from Dubai and other Gulf countries.
Fake notes printed in Quetta are smuggled into India using gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s Dubai network. Intelligence agencies came to know about the racket in Quetta when they interrogated Rajender Kumar Anadkat, a bookie in Gulf countries who was deported to India from Dubai.
The CBI note warns that counterfeiters could be procuring ‘security papers’ from the same foreign sources, which supply the Indian government material for printing genuine currency notes, the newspaper says.
‘‘The possibility of organised international racket having access to the same source from where the materials are being imported by the government presses is also very much there as evident from the quality of materials and printing used for faking Indian currency,’’ the note says.
The CBI says it is difficult to fix the amount of fake currency notes circulating in India, but it quoted a RBI panel, which estimated it to be Rs 1,69,000 crore till 2000. “The enormity of the problem can be anyone’s guess as agencies have managed to seize FICNs worth only Rs 20 crore in five years since 2000,” said an official, quoting the National Crime Records Bureau’s report.
Comments
0 comment