Date:19/05/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/05/19/stories/2006051924660100.htm

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Counterfeit currency racket busted

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: Officials of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) have busted an international racket in counterfeit currency notes by arresting a 30-year-old man at the Bangalore Airport. The DRI officials have seized counterfeit currency notes with a face value of Rs. 24.79 lakh from the arrested.

Official sources said a DRI team led by its Deputy Director Umashankar recently arrested Mohammed Haneef of Mangalore after he alighted a flight from Muscat. The team found that Haneef had concealed currency notes of Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 500 denominations in a wooden box. The notes looked almost genuine and even the bank officials found it difficult to identify them as counterfeit, the sources said.

On a complaint by DRI officials, the airport police registered a case against Haneef and produced him before the Special Court for Economic Offences. The court remanded Haneef in police custody. As the case had international ramifications, Commissioner of Police Ajai Kumar Singh got the case transferred to the Corps of Detectives (CoD). The staff of the Economic Offences Wing of the CoD had taken Haneef to Mangalore for investigation, the sources said.