SSP Devendra Subedi, in-charge of the Metropolitan Police Crime Division, revealed that the subordinate unit of the Nepal Police, had seized fake Indian bank notes worth INR 91.6 from 2010 till August, 2012.
Of the seized amount, currency notes with face value of more than INR 90 million was intercepted along with carriers from separate places of the capital, Tribhuvan International Airport premises in particular, on its way to India. Racketeers of the fake currency notes were often found to have used the TIA as a key transit point for smuggling the contraband, which are pushed into Kathmandu by air.
Police investigators informed that kingpins of the fake currency operate from Pakistan, Vietnam, Thailand and Gulf countries, and use their goons as mule to carry it to Nepal via the TIA and pass it over to their contacts. Police have foiled as many as 20 currency smuggling attempts in the past two years.
Pakistani nationals have topped the prosecution chart of the Nepal Police. “Our estimation has it that 20 per cent of fake Indian currency notes is absorbed in the Nepali markets and the rest is smuggled across the border with India,” SSP Subedi informed.
Though the police force seems to be successful in intercepting a huge amount of the contraband and arresting people used as mules of fake currency, it is yet to dismantle the rackets involved. Fake IC notes were last busted on August 6 leading to the arrest of two Pakistani nationals and a Nepali. Anti-Terrorist Directorate of the Nepal Police caught them with contraband worth INR 2.95 from New Road.
Racketeers usually make false bottom in luggage and conceal the contraband in food packets to hoodwink security officials. On December 21 last year, police arrested three people — a Fillipino, an Indian and Nepali — with the counterfeit currency notes worth INR 12.2 million, the single biggest seizure made so far till date in the country. The contraband was stuffed in the packets of potato chips, babycare powder and detergent powder.
DIG Narayan Prasad Bastakoti, TIA security in-charge, said interception of fake IC currency was on the priority list of the airport police. “We have been adopting the strategies of intelligence gathering, prompt action and arrest of the racketeers trying to use the only international airport of the country as their transit point of smuggling,” he informed, adding that seven racketeers including four foreigners were caught with fake IC notes worth INR 23 million in the past few months.
“Intelligence inputs have it that the racketeers have switched to Bangladesh from Nepal to push fake IC notes into Nepal in recent times after the Nepal Police continued to foil their vicious attempts,” DIG Bastakoti claimed.
Most alarmingly, it seems international racketeers of fake IC notes have been weighing other options to push the contraband into India via Nepal after police intercepted their carriers at the TIA. On February 6, police arrested two Nepalis with fake notes worth INR 1.46 million sent from Pakistan via courier service. According to investigators, two paper cartons containing the fake banknotes were couriered from Karachi of Pakistan through the Sinamangal-based DHL Express Nepal Pvt Ltd. However, the name of the sender was not mentioned.
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