Patna/Muzaffarpur, July 26: A government school teacher in Bihar has been arrested for his alleged involvement in smuggling fake Indian currency notes, directorate of revenue intelligence (DRI) officials said today.
Identified as Mashroor Ahmed aka Master, the teacher, along with his accomplice Suraj Kumar Singh, was arrested near Kalyani Chowk area of Muzaffarpur town, nearly 80km north of Patna, late on Wednesday evening. Master is posted at a school in Motihari, Singh too belonged to the same place, which is around 160km north of Patna.
The duo was caught by a team of DRI, Patna, which had specific information about the consignment of the notes. The raiding team found 4,900 pieces of Rs 500 denomination with a face value of Rs. 24.50 lakh. The duo were sent to jail after being remanded in judicial court by a Muzaffarpur court on Thursday.
“This is the biggest ever consignment of such notes seized in Bihar-Jharkhand so far,” a DRI officer told The Telegraph over phone from Muzaffarpur.
Earlier, DRI personnel had seized a consignment of notes with a face value of Rs 20 lakh at Piprakothi in East Champaran district in December last year and arrested one person. The consignment had been routed through Bangladesh.
“This time, the consignment has been routed through Bangkok in Thailand and it was been hidden inside the sound box of a home theatre sent to Muzaffarpur through a reputed courier company,” the DRI official said.
Master, along with Suraj, allegedly received the consignment from Muzaffarpur, as the courier company does not have its office in Motihari, and the duo was on their way to Motihari when the DRI team intercepted it.
During interrogation, the official said, Master revealed that operators in Pakistan had adopted a new strategy to smuggle such notes to India. “Instead of routing it directly from Nepal, they are now sending consignments through Bangkok to evade the attention of Indian agencies,” he added.
“Master said after receiving the consignment, he was supposed to deliver it to someone in Nepal who is the kingpin of the racket. The kingpin was supposed to supply the counterfeit notes to various Indian cities in smaller consignments,” the officer said.
