MANGALURU: The city police have arrested four persons on charges of printing counterfeit currency notes and have recovered fake notes worth Rs 2,13,500 of Rs 500 denomination at Hampankatta in Mangaluru on Monday. The accused were identified as V Priyesh (38), Vinod Kumar K (33), Abdul Khader SM (58), all from Kasaragod in Kerala and Ayub Khan (51) from Puttur in Dakshina Kannada district.
City police commissioner Anupam Agrawal said that the main accused Priyesh who owns a printing press at Cherkala in Kasaragod was in debt and took to printing counterfeit currency notes to repay the debt. He bought the raw materials online from Kozhikode and Delhi and learnt to print counterfeit currency through YouTube. He was printing fake notes in his printing press at Cherkala for the last three months.
Police said the accused have used high-quality fake Indian currency notes (FICN) making it difficult for the common people to find out that it is fake. Meanwhile, the other three accused helped him to circulate the fake currency notes.
Based on a tip-off, they were arrested from a lodge when they were trying to circulate the counterfeit notes worth Rs 1 lakh for Rs 25,000 cash. The commissioner said that there are chances more people are involved in the crime and further investigation is on.
Police said they have also recovered a cash of Rs 9,030 and three cell phones from them.