Antique dealer Amrit Nayya was arrested on Monday afternoon from Shakespeare Sarani on charges of running an inter-state racket in real and fake antiques. Several East India Company coins, circa 1818, were recovered from him.

According to Subrata Ghosh, officer-in-charge of the local police station, a tip-off led to Nayya’s arrest. He was on his way to strike a deal with a local businessman.

“For some time, we were aware of antique dealers carrying out illegal trade in the area. We were told that Nayya would be coming on Monday to the area and netted him,” Ghosh said.

According to police sources, Nayya confessed during interrogation to having links with antique smugglers across the state. “He is suspected to have links with international smugglers, too. The coins we recovered from him appear genuine, but we have sent them to experts to check their market value,” said an officer of the police station.

“Nayya owns a unit at Canning, where fake antique furniture, jewellery and other items are made. His uncle runs the unit and Nayya uses his contacts to sell the goods. The duo is pretty good at the art of giving the finished product an archaic look and the gullible can easily be duped. We have come to know that these items fetch a good price in the international market,” the officer added.

Sleuths are also interrogating Nayya to get to the kingpin, who is reportedly in hiding at Basanti, in South 24-Parganas.

“We have got in touch with Bengal police to locate the leader of the gang. It has links with smugglers across the borders in Bangladesh and Nepal, who help it get in touch with buyers,” a detective department official said.

Meanwhile, senior officers of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) said they will look into the claims made by Nayya. “We are going to carry out an investigation and find out if the gang is also active in Birbhum and the adjacent areas, and if they could lead us to other criminals who may have a connection in the Santiniketan heist,” they added.