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2008-03-05 India-Pakistan
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4 held with fake banknotes in Berhampore
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 In A joint operation carried out by the West Bengal CID, the district police and the Armys intelligence unit in Berhampore on Tuesday, four persons, including three youths from Jammu and Kashmir, were arrested with a large number of fake currency notes. The security forces claim it to be an important step in gauging the extent of the racket sponsored by Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to flood the country with counterfeit currency.
Those arrested are Hafizul Rehman, a resident of Beldanga in Murshidabad who is reportedly the mastermind, Mansoor Ahmed, Feroz Ahmed and Mohammed Yusuf, all in their twenties and residents of Budgam, Baramullah and Srinagar districts of Jammu and Kashmir, respectively. According to sources, an accomplice of the group, Dilip, managed to escape. Murshidabad Superintendent of Police Basak Dasgupta said the counterfeit notes to the face value of Rs 40,000 were in the denomination of Rs 1,000.
Intelligence sources told The Indian Express that raids were conducted on two hotels near the Berhampore bus stop. All four had checked into Hotel Mayur and Hotel Royal on Monday night. Using a decoy customer, both hotels were raided around 10 am on Tuesday. We believe they had crossed over from Bangladesh and had been staying in Murshidabad for nearly two months. A fake 10-Dinar note has also been recovered from the accused.
Though the four havent named any militant group during initial interrogation, sources said the police suspect it to be Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has been smuggling counterfeit notes through the porous Indo-Bangla border in West Bengal and the Northeast. Over the last two months, there have been more than 20 raids in Assam alone during which fake currency notes have been recovered.
After the fencing of the international border in J-K and Punjab, the focus of the smugglers shifted to the Nepal border. When the situation became volatile in Nepal, the sources said, J-K-based militant groups began concentrating on the Indo-Bangla border through Murshidabad and via Silchar and Karimganj into Assam.
In all probability, the notes are printed in Bangladesh and are brought to Berhampore. Runners (who carry the notes) from J-K come by train to Kolkata and then take a bus to Berhampore. Once a deal is over, the runners avoid Kolkata where security checks are tighter. Instead, they go to Malda and then take a train to Delhi from where they go back to Jammu or Srinagar. These fake notes are then used by militants to reward people for their services or to make purchases. It is a circle that involves many people. This is the first strike on the racket in a long time, said a source.
According to the security forces, lower denomination notes would cost 40 per cent of the notes value, while higher denomination ones like those seized in Berhampore would cost only 30 per cent. Sources said the seized notes were of superb quality, in which previous printing glitches had been overcome. Given the volume of fake currency entering the country, this is only the tip of the iceberg, the sources added. 
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Posted by Fred 2008-03-05 00:00||
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File under: Lashkar e-Taiba
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