Andhra Pradesh

Counterfeit currency rackets on the rise Law and order

Counterfeit currency racketeers are rising by the , despite law-enforcers cracking down on them frequently. Several factors are contributing to this.

There are multiple reasons behind this. The police have no control over the gangs, allegedly supported by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence, operating such racket as part of a larger conspiracy to destabilise the Indian economy.

On the other hand, there are innumerable habitual and first-time offenders resorting to this crime at local level because fake currency notes can be produced and distributed easily. It may sound an exaggeration but all that one needs is a computer with scanner and colour printer to produce them!

With the dip in prices, best of these machines can be purchased for Rs. 60,000. Some gangs don’t invest even this much. In many cases it was found that the gangs made persons possessing these machines as their members luring them to make a fast buck.

Unless there is an alert from their crime intelligence network or a specific complaint is lodged, the police too would not pursue the cases. Though the racketeers are arrested now and then, they begin their operations soon after coming out from jail on bail as police cannot keep a tab on them with the limited manpower available.

The police might fail in controlling the gangs making fake currency notes. But people can prevent circulation of the same with small observations. In fact, everybody is confused as to how to ascertain if a currency note is counterfeit or genuine.

Forensic experts say the intaglio process involving higher deposition of ink is used in making currency notes of higher denomination. As a result, one can feel the embossed printing on the note by touching it.

This feature is absent in most of the counterfeit currency notes.

Water mark -earlier it used to be Ashoka chakra symbol and now Mahatma Gandhi photo- that can be seen on the note’s empty space. Third important feature is the security thread that is clear and sharp. By exposing the note to light, horizontal windows can be seen between the gaps in the thread.

As optically variable ink is used, the colour of the note changes when it is held close to light and away from it. The latent image of the denomination can also be seen on the edge of the note. The best way to compare is keep the fake note and the genuine one side by side and note the difference in features.

If examined under a microscope or ultra violet lamps, the fake note would have dotted printing while the printing would be in continuous lines in the genuine one. The absence of any of this feature means that the note could be a fake one.

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