Police have arrested Abhishek Tiwari, the suspected mastermind behind a large-scale counterfeit currency racket, from Nagpur on Saturday.
His arrest follows the interrogation of four others previously taken into custody in connection with a massive haul of fake Indian currency notes worth ₹9 crore, recovered from a riverside hotel in Sandeshkhali, North 24-Parganas on July 18.
The counterfeit notes, which police described as “duplicate” mixed with genuine ones, were found neatly packed in bundles and hidden inside paper cartons in Room 206 of Royal Island Hotel at Dhamakhali Ghat under Sandeshkhali police station in Basirhat subdivision.
Though once owned by Shahjahan Sheikh and his aide Shibu Hazra, the hotel is now operated by Bappaditya Mondal, another aide of Shahjahan and a prominent Trinamool worker who has since gone into hiding, police said.
Hossain Mehedi Rehman, the Basirhat police district SP, told The Telegraph: “All currency notes recovered are duplicates and look like Indian currency. But instead of the words ‘Reserve Bank of India’, the name of a fictitious bank is printed on them.”
Police sources said that the fake notes were printed with ‘Manoranjan Bank of India’ as the issuing bank instead of the RBI.
Apart from this obvious giveaway, the currency is hard to detect as fake owing to the good quality of printing, sources said.
Cops noted that most of the fake notes had face value of ₹500. Some had face value of ₹100.
The modus operandi involved offering cash loans to unsuspecting businessmen, where wads of ₹500 notes had counterfeit currency mixed with genuine ones to make detection difficult, sleuths said.
The case surfaced on July 18 when police arrested Sirajuddin Mollah and Debabrata Chakraborty from a guest house in Sandeshkhali with a substantial amount of fake currency in their possession.
Their interrogation led to the arrest of suspect Teesta Sen from a different guest house just as she was preparing to flee to Jharkhand.
It was during her questioning that Tiwari's name surfaced as the key operator. Acting swiftly, Basirhat police formed a special team and dispatched it to Nagpur.
Tiwari was apprehended and brought back to Sandeshkhali police station on Sunday. He will be produced before the Basirhat court on Monday.