Agra police crack fake currency racket

Agra (Uttar Pradesh), August 12 : The Special Task Force (STF) today seized fake currency notes worth over Rs 1 lakh in of Uttar Pradesh's Agra district.

A police team raided a house in the Taj Firoz Khan locality and nabbed two people with fake rupee notes worth 1,11,000 (26,18.20 US Dollars) in denominations of 1000, 500, 50 and 10 rupees.

Police also seized a scanner, printer and other items.

Raghuveer Lal, a senior Superintendent of Police, in Agra, said, "They (accused) operated mainly in the rural areas of the region. Their main target was to cheat traders of animal market and other traders of the village markets by using these fake notes."

The racket has been busted just a day after the state government handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) a probe related to a fake currency racket emanating from the State Bank of India's (SBI) Dumariyaganj branch in Siddharthnagar near Lucknow.

The STF has asked the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to screen the currency notes available in the chests of the banks in districts bordering Nepal.

This year, over two-dozen such cases have been reported so far in Uttar Pradesh.

ANI