Counterfeit racket uncovered

source: KOL

Phuentsholing police arrest one Indian man

Funny Money: The police is trying to ascertain the number of such notes in circulation.

8 May, 2010 - The royal Bhutan police have uncovered a fake note racket, with the arrest of a 49-year old Indian man, carrying about 15 samples of fake Nu 50, 100 and 500 Bhutanese currencies in the border town of Phuentsholing.
The police also found a high-resolution Canon photocopier machine, papers and ink in his hotel room in Phuentsholing town.

The man, a vegetable vendor and a cassette shop owner in Kalchini, Jalpaiguri district, India, was arrested on April 2, while on his way to negotiate a deal with some Bhutanese. An informer tipped off the police, who arrested the man at around 9 pm in the Phuentsholing lower market.

He had checked into a hotel room that week with two other Indian men, police officials said, adding that they had already taken an advance payment of Nu 20,000 from other Bhutanese dealers, who had placed an order that week to print 200,000 notes of various denominations. “When we caught him, he was on his way to make a second deal,” the police spokesperson said. “We’re still in search of his two Indian partners and the Bhutanese suspects.”

The man told police that they had agreed to exchange one original note for every two fake ones.

The fake notes confiscated by the police were samples to show their Bhutanese counterparts and had the same texture, with security features like an original Bhutanese note, a police official said. “The man had used a special paper and the right colours of ink, bought from Siliguri, which made the notes look anything but fake,” he said.

The high resolution Canon photocopier

The 49-year old man said to the police that he made fake Bhutanese currency notes, by copying both sides of the original note on two thin sheets, using a high resolution Canon Pixma MP 145 photocopier. He then photocopied the security features on the same note, before pasting the two sides together. The serial numbers of the fake notes, however, remained as that of the original. “We made him use the machine to see how he made the fake notes, he was really fast and the security features were well copied,” said a police official.

The government had directed the police to launch a thorough investigation and deploy a special team in Phuentsholing and Jaigaon this year, after several counterfeit notes were detected in the market, police officials said. The bank of Bhutan and Bhutan National bank had also come across a few Nu 100 and Nu 500 notes in 2009.

“We’re in the process of finding out how many counterfeit notes have been circulated in the market and who are his Bhutanese and Indian partners,” said the police spokesperson.

By Phuntsho Choden