High Quality Counterfeit Notes of Rs 2000 Seized In Bengal

New Delhi: The Border Security Force (BSF) has seized a packet of "high quality" fake Rs 2,000 banknotes early on Wednesday from West Bengal's Malda district along the India-Bangladesh border, amid mounting concern that currency counterfeiters may have been quicker off the mark than expected.

This is the second seizure of "high quality" counterfeit currency in two days that, investigators said, are strikingly similar to the notes issued by the central bank in November last year after Prime Minister Narendra Modi banned Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes, and replacing them with a new series of Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 notes.

Yesterday, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had arrested 21-year-old Umar Faruq from a market in Malda when he was allegedly on his way to hand over the three fake currency notes of the face value of Rs 2,000 each. He was already wanted in a 2015 case.

Following up on the arrest, the BSF says it picked up indications about possible delivery of more fake notes. Early on Wednesday morning, BSF personnel along the Indo-Bangladesh border, also in Malda district, detected some movement near a mango orchard. The troopers didn't succeed in catching anyone but they did find a packet of notes, wrapped in polythene. It contained 100 notes of Rs 2,000 denomination.

The BSF said the notes appeared similar to the "high quality" counterfeits seized earlier by the NIA, a suggestion that miscreants could reasonably pass off the fake notes to unsuspecting people as genuine notes.

The government had earlier suggested that introducing new currency notes would take counterfeiters, alleged to be operating based in Pakistan, months before they reproduce fake notes that bear any resemblance to the new banknotes.

It wasn't that counterfeiters had been able to replicate all security features. According to the Reserve Bank of India's website, fakes notes circulated earlier too "look similar to genuine notes even though no security feature has been copied".