In one of the biggest hauls of counterfeit currency in the country, fake Indian currency notes totalling Rs 6 crore were recovered by the Delhi Police from a warehouse in southwest Delhi on Thursday.

The police believe the consignment was smuggled from Pakistan to India
through the India-Nepal border. Three men allegedly involved in the racket have been arrested.

“The seizure of such a large number of fake currency notes in a single case is unusual, not the continuing attempt to circulate fake notes,” a union home ministry official said.

“Pakistani agencies push fake currency into India to achieve the twin objective of funding terrorism and trying to destabilise the Indian economy,” he added.

Delhi Police commissioner BK Gupta said the notes were concealed in 33 cloth bundles on two small trucks parked outside a warehouse in Dabri.

“The seizure is one of the biggest hauls in the country and the currency seems to have been sent from a foreign country. It looks as good as the original,” he said.

Sources said the consignment was sent by Iqbal Kana, a native of Shamli in western Uttar Pradesh who now lives in Lahore and regularly pushes fakes into India on instructions of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).

While the police are yet to ascertain the route taken this time, the ISI has been pumping fake currency notes through Bangladesh, Nepal and by sea.

Sometimes, even roads have been used. On October 18 last year, fake Indian currency totalling Rs 1 crore was seized from a Mercedes Benz vehicle originating from Turkey and intercepted at the India-Pakistan border on specific intelligence inputs.

“The reason why the notes seem almost identical to real Indian currency is because we suspect that they were printed at a government printing press in Pakistan,” an officer said.