By IANS
Kathmandu : Less than a month after Nepal police unearthed a major fake Indian currency racket spanning Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand and the Middle East, four men, including two Indians, were arrested in Kathmandu Wednesday with fake notes.
Santosh Sharma and Dinesh Agarwal were arrested along with two Nepali accomplices Prem Singh and Bhim Shrestha with a wad of 129 fake Nepali and Indian one-thousand rupee notes, the authorities said here.
The fresh arrests come after police discovered a thriving racket in counterfeit 1,000 and 500 rupee-notes involving casinos, unregistered money changers, travel agencies and a series of businesses run by the syndicate.
Police raided several areas in the capital earlier, including Handshake Travel Agency in Thamel, the capital’s tourist hub.
According to Police Superintendent Devendra Subedi, the arrested owner of the travel agency, Gyan Prasad Acharya, had opened his office a little over a year ago with two more partners, Upendra Chaudhari and Nawa Raj Pandey.
While Chaudhari’s job was to receive the money smuggled in by couriers, Pandey was entrusted with sending the notes to third countries like Bangladesh and Malaysia, the police alleged.
Though Chaudhari and Pandey are still at large, police found fake notes worth Rs.4 million in the possession of five more Nepalis they arrested during the earlier raids.
Reportedly, the syndicate also includes gunmen to silence people regarded as a threat to the racket.
Police said one of the arrested, Lal Muhammad, is suspected of having planned the murder of a former gang member, Balaram Patuwa, who was shot dead in a busy area of the capital last month after the gang suspected him of having turned police informer and disclosed information about a deal that went sour last year.
In Nov 2006, after receiving an Interpol alert, Bangladesh police seized counterfeit Indian notes worth Rs.1.5 million in Dhaka. Patuwa, suspected of having caused the loss, paid with his life.
Police are also tying up the network with a Pakistani who was arrested from Kathmandu’s international airport less than a fortnight ago with fake Indian currency in his possession.
On July 30, Abdul Wahab, who had arrived in Kathmandu from Karachi on a Pakistan International Airlines flight, was found to possess over Rs.10 million in 1000 and 500 rupee notes stashed in soap cartons. Subedi said the quality of the currency found in Wahab’s possession was the same as Thursday’s haul.
A month before Wahab’s arrest, three Nepalis were arrested at the same airport after they had landed from Malaysia. Interpol alerted the local authorities that the trio were carrying counterfeit Indian notes worth almost Rs.4 million.
According to Subedi, almost 50 percent of the counterfeit notes are circulated in Nepal while the rest find their way to India through different routes. In Nepal, the towns along the open Indo-Nepal border are the most vulnerable to the racket.