Two held in SBI fake currency case; CBI might probe into case

Lucknow, Aug 5 (UNI) Police have arrested two people regarding the haul of counterfeit currency that was seized from the SBI chest in Siddharthnagar district.

The government might hand over the matter to the CBI as it is concerned the economy of the country, official sources said today.

The RBI team had started the screening of the currency in the SBI's Dumriyaganj branch yesterday, which was a total of over Rs 100 crore in cash.

Meanwhile, today few more officials joined the team for speedy work. It might take another couple of days in separating fake notes from the real ones.

So far, the team had sorted out the counterfeit currency worth Rs 20 lakh, all in the denomination of Rs 1000.

It was alleged that the counterfeits checked in from Nepal, however, the sources refused to comment over the same until thorough probe is made into the matter.

Earlier, on July 25, the STF had seized fake currency worth Rs 16 lakh from the Mahanagar area of the state capital and held four people regarding the same, besides, seizing Rs 5 lakh fake notes from Azamgarh.

During interrogation, the accussed revealed that the SBI's Dumriyaganj branch cashier Sudhakar Tripathi helped them in replacing the real notes from.

On July 29, the STF held Sudhakar and seized Rs 7,21,000, including fake notes worth Rs 5,000 from his residence 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 main chest of the branch in Siddharthnagar district.

Meanwhile, the bank accountant and two others were being interrogated.

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