Chennai: The elite ‘Q’ branch of the Tamil Nadu police has commenced an investigation into the presence of fake notes in many coastal districts of the state.
On Monday, the state police arrested two employees of a petrol pump who were trying to deposit the daily collection from the petrol pump in a nationalised bank. The bank staff found that Rs 52,000 of the total amount deposited were fake.
Sudhakar(51) of Tsunami nagar and J. Selvakumar (38) of Reddipalayam were arrested and remanded in judicial custody.
The petrol pump was owned by the Tamil Nadu Fisheries Development Corporation (TNFDC) and a probe is on for the accomplices of the arrested duo.
However, police in Cuddalore told IANS that since the notes were of good quality, the involvement of an organised network cannot be ruled out.
The elite “Q’ branch police has been roped in for the investigation as similar instances of high-quality counterfeit currency were detected in many coastal towns of the state.
The recent raids conducted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the ‘Q’ branch police on various areas of Tamil Nadu on the premises of erstwhile LTTE operators and sympathisers may be recalled along with this.
A senior officer of the Tamil Nadu police at the Economic Offenses Wing (EOW) told IANS, “There seems to be an organised network behind the surfacing of counterfeit currency in many parts of Tamil Nadu, especially coastal areas. The EOW has approached the ‘Q’ branch which is well versed in the activities of certain Tamil movements and this would help us get a lead into the source of these currencies.”
It may be noted that the defunct LTTE is trying to regroup using support from Tamil diaspora and the movement is using the sympathy it has in many parts of the state for its further advancements.
Sources in the police told IANS that the counterfeit currency network is one method employed by the terror outfits across the globe to generate easy funds and the agencies are trying to crack the presence of such outfits in Tamil Nadu who are involved in printing and circulating counterfeit currency notes.
There are also reports of the former LTTE cadres and operatives using the support of the dreaded Pakistan-based Haji Ali network for the smuggling of gold and drugs for raising funds. The connection with Pakistan smuggling network is also a reason for the state police and other agencies on the alert in the counterfeit currency case as Pakistan intelligence had earlier played a stellar role in pumping currency notes printed in that country into India.
