Hyderabad: Small traders target of fake note racketeers

Hyderabad: Owners of small kirana stores, vegetable and fruit vendors are becoming soft targets for gangs pushing fake currency, said police. In a typical case, an offender makes a small purchase at a shop, pays up with a fake Rs 2,000 note and collects the balance in original currency. 

Rachakonda police who recently busted a currency racket being run by a woman, found the gang had procured the fake currency from the Indo-Bangla border region, which is suspected to have been printed in Pakistan. A team was being sent to Kolkata to nab the kingpin, Safeda Bee.

Senior investigating officers said that the gang had been operating in the city for close to an year now. They were aware that if they tried to exchange fake currency in large numbers, they would be caught out. Hence, they dealt in single large denomination notes and targeted small shop owners and vendors, especially on the outskirts of the city.

Arrested gang members had admitted to exchanging about Rs 1.5 lakh fake notes in different parts of the city, whose value could be close to '10 lakh, police said. 
They operated only at odd-hours and bought material worth a maximum of '250. 
After one gang member Abdul Salaam was arrested in Malkajgiri, others moved to Ghat-kesar to evade police and continue with the illegal activity, a police officer said, adding that the gang had been procuring fake currency from the Bangla border in West Bengal. 

“We also cannot rule out the chances of the currency having brought into India from Pakistan via the Nepal border,” the officer said.

Police, after the arrest of the three gang members hailing from Jharkhand, found that they were only handlers of the fake currency and acted on the instructions of Safeda Bee. 

DCP Malkajgiri Ch. R. Umamaheswara Sarma said a hunt was on to nab Safeda Bee.

“We will get more details of their operations only after we nab her. We need to know about the source of the fake currency, and if she had any connections with any other gangs,” he said. A team had been deputed deputed to nab Safeda at the earliest, he said.