DRI Superintendent VA Syed Mohammed who led the operations on a tip-off identified the carrier of the counterfeit Indian currency notes as Gopinath, a plumber who hails from Mavelikkara in Alappuzha district.
Gopinath arrived at the Cochin International Airport at Nedumbassery from Dubai Thursday morning and the waiting DRI sleuths immediately took him into custody. He was later produced before the Economic Offences Wing Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate's court in Ernakulam and was remanded.
Gopinath told his interrogators that the boxes containing the bundles of notes were handed over to him by one of his friends whom he met in jail claiming they contained toys. He was supposed to hand over the bundles to the representative of a person called Rafi of Kozhikode who reached home from Dubai a few days back.
The DRI had made similar seizures from the Cochin and Calicut airports recently and officials warn against fake currencies printed in foreign countries which are widely in circulation. All currencies were of Rs 500 and 1000 denominations.
The currency is printed on security paper and is very difficult to distinguish with original Indian currency. The security agencies say the currency is exchanged in India at 1:2 ratio of original currency to the counterfeits.
The operators in Dubai select passengers who are in need of money to purchase return tickets and arrange their tickets in exchange of carrying their luggage. They show a suitcase that apparently contains perfumes and clothes and fake currency wrapped in carbon papers concealed underneath.
Notes were found concealed in Gopinath’s bags below packets of toys. In the UAE, Gopinath was arrested and sent to jail for visa violations and was released Wednesday, he told his interrogators.
Officials say the printing and paper of the fake notes were so perfect that only experts could identify them and it is difficult to assess its level penetration in the state. The 500 and 1000-rupee notes seized recently even had security threads in them and the paper quality was comparable only to the original.
It is believed that these foreign printed notes come from a big production center somewhere in a foreign country. In some cases, top officials from the Reserve Bank of India had to be called in to identify counterfeit currencies.
They believe the fake currency may have found its way in large volumes to the real estate sector as well as into the hands of fundamentalist organizations. Reports say huge volumes of such money are already in circulation along the coastal regions of the State, especially in northern Malabar but it would be difficult to track them.
The officials believe such money could have reached villages and towns in Karnataka through Kasaragod, the Kerala border town. Dubai-based Rafi who often travels up to Colombo with the carriers is believed to be the kingpin of the international racket.
Dubai-Colombo-Kochi is the preferred route of Rafi’s gang since it also provides time and place to transfer the packets safely during the transit. He often uses unsuspecting Kerala workers in the Gulf as couriers.
Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan had admitted to the state Assembly that illegal money in excess of Rs100bn is being pumped into the state every year for the past six or seven years.
