Recently arrested several Bangladeshi smugglers have informed police that they have been smuggling Indian counterfeit currency into India for almost two decades. All these Indian counterfeit notes were made in Karachi, Pakistan, with the help of the Pakistani government. They brought it to Bangladesh from Karachi and then smuggled to India.
Amanullah, a government driver from Sunamganj district of the Narcotics Control Department, has been smuggling Indian counterfeit currency from Pakistan to India through Bangladesh for a long time using international smuggling rings. The members of the group used to bring dried fish, mosaic stones and counterfeit Indian rupee notes inside bags and then send notes to the Bangladesh-India border district in the Chapainawabganj area of Bangladesh through courier service. They collect them tactfully, smuggling them through members of their gang in India.
The Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s (DMP) Detective Branch (DB) said they have received information during interrogation of four arrested members involved in counterfeit Indian currency transactions. Four people involved in counterfeit Indian currency were arrested in raids in Demra and Hazaribagh in the capital on Monday and Tuesday. At the time, 1.5 million Indian counterfeit notes and mobile phones were recovered from them. The arrested persons are Amanullah, the government driver, his second wife, Kajal Rekha, apart from Yasin Arafat Keramat and Nomanur Rahman Khan,
The information was given at a press conference at DMP’s media centre on Minto Road in Dhaka on Wednesday afternoon. DMP Additional Commissioner (DB) A.K.M. Hafeez Akhter said the Gulshan Intelligence Department was tasked with investigating a case involving counterfeit currency worth Rs 63.5 crore at Khilkhet police station in November last year. Nomanur Rahman Khan was arrested from the Nazimuddin Road area of Old Dhaka on 8 February by several teams of detectives of Gulshan Division through analysis of information obtained during the investigation of the case. Noman said during interrogation, his brother Fazlur Rahman who lives in Pakistan, sends various goods from Pakistan by air and sea and counterfeit Indian 500-rupee notes to Bangladesh through different persons at different times. Noman added that his brother Saidur Rahman, importer Abu Taleb, coordinator Fatema Akter and others have been arrested earlier, along with a part of a large consignment of counterfeit rupees smuggled in recent times but others were kept in the custody of Kajal Rekha and Aman in Hazaribagh.
DB chief Hafiz Akhter said a special operation was carried out in the Hazaribagh area of the capital after getting information provided by Noman. A total of 12 lakh counterfeit Indian fake notes worth Rs 6 lakh were recovered from them. Based on the information of the arrested persons, they raided the house of Kajal Rekha and arrested her along with another three lakh Indian counterfeit notes. During the preliminary interrogation, the detainees said that they had been collecting Indian counterfeit currency from Pakistan for a long time, then smuggling to India through Rajshahi in the Chapainawabganj area.
There are basically two families at the centre of this cycle of counterfeit money smugglers. One of the families is from Srinagar, Munshiganj district. Most members of this family once lived in Pakistan. Now Fazlur Rahman, a senior member of the family, collects high quality counterfeit money from Pakistan-centric mafias in Karachi. And those counterfeit money was sometimes sent to Bangladesh by sea in sacks of dried, sometimes mosaic stones and other construction materials. His brothers Saidur Rahman Rahman, Nomanur Rahman and brother-in-law Shafiqur Rahman assisted him in this work. Together with the importers, counterfeit Indian currency was brought from the Pakistani port of Karachi to the port of Chittagong via Sri Lanka. Later, the gang used to unload the counterfeit currency and store it in warehouses, supply it to dealers through various channels and collect the counterfeit currency through various banks and later smuggle it to Pakistan through hundi. Hafiz Akhter said that one lakh Indian counterfeit notes were bought for Rs 36,000 and sold for Rs 40,000-42,000 for every lakh Indian counterfeit notes sold.