New Delhi:Several operatives of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, involved in smuggling of Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN), have shifted base from Kathmandu to Dhaka in a bid to push 'Pakistan-printed Indian fake currency' into India.
After a series of huge seizures of FICN in Nepal in recent years, Dawood Ibrahim's operatives based in Kathmandu and border areas of Nepal-Bihar and Nepal-UP shifted their operations to Bangladesh.
"Dawood Ibrahim's multi-layered fake currency operation now relies more on his aides based in Bangladesh," former Director General(DG) of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence(DRI), DP Dash told IANS.
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Dash, who led the country's top revenue intelligence agency in busting several international modules of FICN gangs till mid-2019, said that high-quality fake currency notes cannot be detected by the naked eye. "Currency notes are usually of Rs 2,000 denomination and seem to have been printed at the hi-tech printing facility, probably in Pakistan, as during one of the seizures of FICN at Kathmandu airport, the concerned flight had originated from Pakistan," the former DRI chief added.
Over the years, the Malda district in West Bengal has become the hub of FICN smuggling. Its proximity to the Bangladesh border, good road and rail connectivity makes it a hotspot for such nefarious operations. Besides Malda, two other districts of Bengal, Murshidabad and Nadia have also seen a rise in the smuggling of fake currency notes. Border Security Force(BSF) sources said that while high-quality FICN reportedly comes from Pakistan, low-quality counterfeit notes are being printed across the border.
During elections, an extra vigil is maintained by security forces on the West Bengal-Bangladesh border to prevent FICN smuggling and criminal activity. "From small-time criminal gangs to aides of underworld syndicates all of them have a network in Malda, " said Rajnikant Mishra, former Chief of Border Security Force(BSF).