With the recent arrests of nine people in Ramanathapuram, on charges of circulating high-quality Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN), and Zakir Hussain, a suspected ISI operative in April last year, the Tamil Nadu police have strong reasons to believe that Sri Lanka is the new hub for pushing fake notes into India through Tamil Nadu.

According to CB-CID police sources, the currency notes printed in Pakistan are now pushed into India via Sri Lanka and the route for the fake currency printed in Bangladesh is through Malda in West Bengal, The Hindu reported. The police have arrested about 50 suspects till now this year for circulating fake notes in Tamil Nadu and Chennai, the report further said.

“Around 25 cases have been registered and FICN worth Rs.8 lakh was seized from them,” a police source told The Hindu. Most of the suspects get the money in exchange for smuggling drugs, and sometimes even arms, into the country. “After this, they convert it into legal tender currency by buying goods,” a CBCID officer said.

“Only Rs. 52,000 was seized by us, but nearly Rs. 9 lakh has already been circulated. What is worrying is that most of them are high-quality notes and it has been flowing into Tamil Nadu undetected through Sri Lanka for a long time. Such issues are being suppressed by different law enforcement agencies,” a police source said.

Apart from Sri Lanka, sources say that money exchangers outside Singapore and Malaysia airports are also pushing in some FICN into India, especially through Chennai. The police have written to the Interpol seeking help to crack the network.

“Some of the suspects said they had got currency from money exchangers outside the airport. We are coordinating with other agencies to collect details,” the officer added.

(With inputs from The Hindu)