NEW DELHI: In the biggest haul of fake currency notes post-demonetisation, the BSF on Wednesday seized FICN with face value of Rs 2 lakh from Malda in West Bengal.
The seizures, said to be the first this year, come a day after the NIA in coordination with BSF arrested a wanted accused in another FICN case Umar Faruq from Malda.
Faruq told the interrogators that a delivery of FICN consignment from Bangladesh was due and accordingly the BSF laid a trap in the wee hours on Wednesday at a mango orchard along the Indo-Bangla border.
“The information was further developed by the BSF staff and special operation was planned and launched by BSF personnel of 24 Battalion, BSF. Today at about 0210 hrs Special Operation party of BSF observed some movement of Indian miscreants in a Mango orchard in alignment of International Border, opposite Kacha link road near village Duisata Bigi in the Border Out Post (BOP) Churiantpur, ex 24 Bn BSF,” the BSF said in a statement here.
During the trap, some movement was observed by the special operations party on Bangladesh side ahead of the border fence. The miscreant from Bangladesh side threw one bundle suspected to be FICN consignment over the fence towards Indian side. Ambush party immediately challenged and tried to encircle the suspected smuggler but he managed to escape taking advantage of darkness and thick vegetation of the mango orchard, the statement further said.
The party thoroughly searched the area and recovered one packet wrapped in white polythene secured with rubber band and black tape. After opening the packet, 100 notes of 2000 denomination (new currency) FICN of face value of Rs 2 lakh (in the denomination Rs 2000 notes) were found, officials said.
These notes appear to be similar as seized recently by Police and NIA. The seized FICN was handed over to Police Station Kaliachak in Malda for further investigation.
In 2016, BSF, South Bengal Frontier had seized FICN of the face value of Rs.1,47,70,500 besides apprehending 19 racketeers.
Official sources said eight to nine security features have been copied but the quality of the paper is below par.
In order to check the menace of FICN smuggling along the Indo-Bangla border, the BSF had recently revised the guidelines for strengthening border domination especially the South Bengal border with Bangladesh, officials added.
In a joint operation on Tuesday, the NIA and the BSF had arrested Umar Faruk (21) from Golapganj area of Kaliachak in Malda in an old case relating to seizure of FICN with face value of Rs 5.94 lakh. Three fake notes with face value of Rs 6,000 in the denomination of Rs 2000 besides a mobile was recovered from his possession at the time of his arrest.