West Bengal: BSF seizes 200 fake notes at Indo-Bangla border

The Kaliachak and Malda areas of West Bengal along the border are notorious for FICN smuggling.

Kolkata, Apr 3: The BSF has seized 200 fake currency notes of Rs 2,000 denomination in two separate cases near the Indo-Bangladesh International Border in West Bengal.

In the first case, a BSF patrol seized fake notes with face value of Rs 3 lakh near the IB fence gate in the Churiantpur area of Malda around 11:45 pm on Sunday. The seizure was made after suspected smugglers flung a packet into the Indian side from across the border. While the smugglers managed to escape taking the benefit of darkness, the patrol party seized the packet which has 150 fake notes of Rs 2,000 denomination, the BSF said.

The second incident was reported from the Farakka area in Murshidabad district on Monday when the Border Security Force troops intercepted a Jharkhand-based man on a tip-off. Fifty fake currency notes of Rs 2,000 was seized from the man, they said.

"Genuine currency totaling Rs 1,350, a mobile phone, an Aadhaar card and a driving licence was recovered from the man identified as R K Mondal (31)," a senior officer said.

Both the cases have been transferred to the local police, they added. With this, the BSF has so far seized Fake Indian Currency Note of face value Rs 6.96 lakhs this year in four instances near the border area.

The Kaliachak and Malda areas of West Bengal along the border are notorious for FICN smuggling. In 2016, BSF's South Bengal Frontier (comprising five border districts of West Bengal) had seized fake currency with face value of over Rs 1.47 crore and arrested 19 smugglers. The trend is being witnessed post demonetisation too although the trickle is slow, the officer said.

PTI