ISI-sponsored counterfeit racket busted

Lucknow, Aug 14: The Special Task Force (STF) of the Uttar Pradesh police have unearthed an ISI-sponsored counterfeit racket by arresting five people from the capital city today.

The five youth told interrogators that they were handed over the fake currency by an official of the Pakistan High Commission in Kathmandu for distribution in India. the STF said the ''high quality'' fake currency was printed in a foreign country.

The five accused, Dev Prakash Shukla, Kundan Kishore, Alok Srivastava, Dharmendra Singh and Virendra Singh, were arrested from the Mahanagar area here this morning. All the accused are residents of eastern Uttar Pradesh.

They admitted that Dev Prakash Shukla and Kundan Kishore used to buy the counterfeits from Nasir, a resident of Virganj in Nepal at 50 per cent rates and the five used to sell the same in India on 70 per cent value.

They claimed that Nasir used to get the fake currency from an official of the Pakistan High Commission in Kathmandu.

The STF recovered the fake currency worth Rs 1.30 lakh, including 92 notes in denomination of Rs 1000 and 76 notes in denomination of Rs 500.

''The accused have distributed fake currency worth crore of rupees in the past two months itself,'' SSP (STF) S K Bhagat said here addinng, the racket was thriving for the past two years.

The SSP said Nasir was selling the counterfeits to other conduits too across the country.

UNI