An FIR has been lodged under Indian Penal Code sections. (Representational)
Noida Police on Tuesday said it has busted a fake currency racket here with the arrest of five people and seized counterfeit notes of the face value of around Rs 6.50 lakh ahead of local body polls in Uttar Pradesh.
According to police, the gang members were inspired by the popular web series 'Farzi' and used Instagram to connect with their network spread across Delhi-NCR, and parts of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.
Additional DCP (Noida) Shakti Avasthy said the arrest has been made by officials of Sector 24 police station and the recovered banknotes include forged notes of denominations 2000, 500 and 200.
"The five people arrested are Faiz Khan, Shibu Khan, Aditya Gupta, Ayush Gupta and Hari Om Atri. They had a chain of network to supply fake notes. They got double the number of fake notes like Rs 200 in fake notes for Rs 100 real currency and the profit margin increased up to four times as one went higher up in the supply chain," Avasthy told reporters.
"Three men were wanted in connection with the case. One of them has been identified as 'Singhania', who lives in Chhapra district of Bihar, and printed these notes, the other is 'Bhola', who stays in Delhi and the third goes by the name of 'Mobin' in Lucknow," the officer said.
The police said the accused used WhatsApp with virtual phone numbers to evade tracking.
"They also used Instagram for networking and made reels related to fake currencies. They got in touch with their clients through comments on YouTube videos. They were also inspired by a web series which was released two to three months ago," Avasthy said.
Of those held, Shibu had been working in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, while Faiz was in Kuwait until recently, the police said.
The police said the fake notes were being procured from "Singhania" in Bihar and "Bhola" in Delhi. Both of them were printing the fake notes, police said.
The main accused, Faiz Khan, lived in Kuwait and ran his business in Bihar, Lucknow, Noida, Jaipur and the Delhi NCR region, police officials said.
An FIR has been lodged under Indian Penal Code sections 420 (cheating) and provisions pertaining to counterfeit Indian currency notes, they added.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)