24 September 2007

Safe haven for fake currency operatives

Dubai’s emergence as a major transit hub for global counterfeit currency operatives — who use the port city as a safe sanctuary — has troublesome dimensions with the pumping of fake Indian currency notes into the country, according to security agencies.
Added to this are Pakistan-backed jihadist terrorist networks which often pitch in to fuel the fake Indian currency smuggling network on a global scale.

“The ‘secret cell structure’ of the terrorist groups can only work towards facilitating the currency smuggling machinery across countries,” said a senior intelligence official.
In fact, a Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) report prepared sometime back had specifically mentioned that Mumbai-based operatives were placing ‘orders’ with their Dubai-based counterparts for a steady supply of fake Indian currency.
When asked whether Dubai was being increasingly used by international operatives as a transit route in ferrying fake Indian currency notes, an official with Dubai police’s General Department of Criminal Investigation told DNA on Sunday that although they were certain inputs in this regard, he would not like to comment on the matter.
The seizure of fake currency notes worth Rs10 lakh from the city on Friday will, in all likelihood, put revenue sleuths and members of other security agencies on the trail of the global operatives.

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