Thane, August 31: WIth the arrest of three persons including one from Andhra Pradesh, Thane police today claimed to have trapped an inter-state counterfeit corrency gang which was dealing in the circulation of fake notes of Rs 100 denomination in various states in the country.
Giving details of the racket, chief of the Anti Extortion CEll of the Thane Police Commissionerate Sunil Patil said that the racket had been going on for a quite some time.
It was last week, acting on a tip off the police team kept a watch on a bar in Naupada locality where two persons had come to dispose of the counterfeit notes.
They were nabbed with a total of 339 notes of Rs 100 denomination, all the notes were fake. Their names were given as Amol Phophale,21 and Anil D’Souza, 23.
An interrogation of the duo revealed that they had got the fake notes from one Panwalla at the Suhaba Dabha in Rangareddi, on the Mumbai-Hyderabad highway.
They had collected fake notes to the tune of Rs. 40,000 from one Desraj Sharma, Hyderabad, who was also arrested by the Thane police who had gone there for investigation.
In a similar fashion, a total of nearly 140 fake hundred rupee notes were found from the Hundi of the Kalahasti temple in Andhra Pradesh and the temple authoriteis were baffled on finding these notes which were later disposed off.
—Agencies