NEW DELHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is probing the role of Dawood Ibrahim’s close aide Iqbal Kana in the Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) syndicate, which is pumping in fake bills worth crores, from Pakistan using Dubai as a transit route. The agency probe has gained momentum after the arrest of an alleged courier Ekramul Ansari from Delhi Airport last week. Ansari was travelling from Dubai and was supposed to handover the FICN worth `49 lakh to a Patna-based handler.
NIA sources said Iqbal Kana, a close aide of Dawood Ibrahim, has been operating from Pakistan and has founded a core group in India for further circulation. The FICN is being dispatched to Dubai from Pakistan and from Dubai, couriers are used to send the consignment to India.
In 2012, NIA had nabbed an alleged associate of Iqbal Kana who was tasked with circulation of FICN. Earlier, alleged LeT operative, Abdul Karim Tunda, had revealed that Iqbal Kana, was supervising Dawood’s FICN network and he used to get the counterfeit currency notes from a Pakistani ISI officer to smuggle into India. Tunda had claimed that Iqbal Kana used his residence in Pakistan as a command centre to operate Dawood’s FICN syndicate.