UP: Multi-agency probe in fake currency racket

Siddharthnagar/Lucknow, Aug 6: A multi-agency probe has been launched following a startling discovery of fake currency from Doomyriaganj State Bank of India(SBI) chest even as the Reserve Bank of India(RBI) has installed BPS-2000 machine to count and sort out fake notes.

The RBI has put a ban on the operations of 14 SBI branches attached with Doomariaganj branch and constituted a special team to probe into the matter which seems to have wider ramifications.

RBI officials have already detected fake currency worth over Rs 66.24 lakh after counting Rs 2.5 crore currency notes stored in the chest. They have installed a modern currency sorting machine BPS-2000 to check the remaining currency.

Six people including Sudhakar Tripathi,the cashier of Doomariaganj branch of SBI, had been arrested after the fake currency racket came to the fore.

During the checking of the chest, the RBI officials also found Rs 70 lakh missing from the strong room.

A RBI sources said they had to count Rs 184 crore currency notes of which only Rs 2.5 crore had been counted till yesterday.

This morning, the RBI installed the BPS-2000 machine which could count and detect fake notes. The machine in one hour could only count 30 wads, a RBI sources said at the chest.

However, the machine could only count maximum of Rs 30 lakh per hour it the wads are of Rs 1000 notes.

On the other hand, the main conspirator the chief cashier of the SBI Doomariaganj branch of the SBI Sudhakar Tripathi alias Baba who is in judicial custody along with six others will appear before the local court when police would seek their custody for further interrogation.The state police was also likely to plead in the court for allowing them to conduct a Narco-Anyalsis test of the culprits to get other details of their crime.

Meanwhile, the state police along with the RBI and SBI officials have started investigating into the possibility of some fake account numbers in the branch.

On the other hand, the bank officials are also looking into the matter how a bank chest was set up just 40 kilometers from the Indo-nepal border when there is a standing order of the RBI that no chest could be set up within 100 km radius of the international border.

During the interrogation of the culprits, it was found that there were several fake accounts in the branch where people used to deposit counterfeit currency and then they used to withdraw it from other branch of the same bank in other parts of the state and even country.

The RBI officials are also investigating into the activities of the main conspirator Sudhakar Tripathi who was working in the branch for the last 32 years. It was him who helped other accused replace the real notes from the fake ones.

On July 29, STF of the Uttar Pradesh Police had held Sudhakar and seized Rs 7,21,000, including fake notes worth Rs 5,000 from his house and later requested the RBI for currency screening in the SBI branch.

Yesterday, a team of senior RBI officials reached the bank and seized counterfeit Indian currency worth Rs 20 lakh from the branch's main chest in Siddharthnagar district.

UNI