Berhampur: Police busted a fake currency manufacturing unit at Palur Bunglow Sahi here on Monday.

"We seized fake currency notes of Rs 2,000, Rs 500, Rs 200 and Rs 100 worth Rs 4,49,550, a colour printer, 22 cartridges, nine rubber stamps, nail polish bottles, paper cutters, and five mobile phones that were used in the illegal production of notes from a rented house," said sub-inspector of police Dipak Kumar Lenka. Lenka is an officer with the Bhubaneswar-Cuttack commissionerate and had come to Berhampur to bust the unit.

The commissionerate, in association with their Berhampur counterparts, also apprehended the mastermind, Rameswar Maharana, 43, of K. Nuagaon and K. Ramesh, 56, of Wardabadi Street. The fake notes include 170 notes of Rs 2,000, 100 of Rs 500, 200 of Rs 200, 322 of Rs 100 and 57 notes of Rs 50 denominations.

The cops located the unit after apprehending three persons - Pranam Bhoi, Dilip Bhoi, and Sarat Kumar Sahu from Khurda district - who were trying to put the notes into circulation in Tamando police limits.

"We seized fake notes of different denominations worth Rs 15,600 on Sunday. After their arrest, the three confessed that they had procured the notes from Maharana. Two police teams were formed to follow the lead and arrived in Berhampur to nab the mastermind," Lenka said.

Maharana, during interrogations, stated that he and Ramesh used various instruments to print the notes and sold those through middlemen. The police said Pranam, Dilip and Sarat moved to different places in Odisha, especially the industrial belts and parts of Andhra Pradesh.

Investigations revealed the racket was running for four years and the notes were used to buy old Hanuman coins, smuggle brown sugar and body parts of wild animals.