Fake notes arriving in air cargo

Around three weeks after the Mumbai Customs arrested a Mahim man, Danish Petiwala, and his associate Saraswati Dattaram alias Muskan, for receiving fake currency notes via air cargo in October last year, another man allegedly involved in the racket was arrested in the early hours of Monday. The special investigation and intelligence branch of Customs arrested Chennai resident Khaleel Rehman, 40, at the Mumbai International Airport after he landed from Malaysia. The Customs officers said that Rehman would carry Indian currency to Malaysia, from where fake currency notes would be sent via air cargo to Mumbai.

Sources in the Customs said that Malaysia has emerged as the new route to push fake currency notes into India. “All these years, smugglers preferred the Nepal- Bangladesh route to bring in fake currency notes. In this scam, a new route (Malaysia) has emerged, and fake notes of only Rs 2,000 denomination were used,” the source said.

The arrests of Petiwala and Muskan on February 12 exposed the network that not only pushed, but also circulated, fake currency notes in the country. Petiwala, 29, and Muskan had received the consignment from Malaysia, marked as cosmetics, in October last year. It contained 34 fake notes of Rs 2,000 denomination. The two used the fake notes at a pizza outlet in Mahim, at a mall in Goregaon, for a three-day stay at a hotel in Marol, and to purchase cocaine and other drugs.

The Customs officers, who had specific inputs regarding the parcel, managed to trace Petiwala and Muskan last month. “Petiwala said that he was dealing with a Malaysia-based man named Amir Mirza, who used to pay him Rs 50,000 for receiving Rs 1lakh in fake notes. Khaleel Rehman was the courier who would fly to Malaysia with genuine Indian currency that he would collect from people such as Petiwala and Muskan. The gang would use only the air route to push fake currency notes into India,” a source from the Customs said.

The Customs officials suspect that the gang could be having a large network and scores of fake notes may have been circulated. “Rehman would offer the potential fake currency buyers a deal wherein they would get half the amount of the fake currency received. For instance, the buyer would get Rs 50,000 if he/she received Rs 1 lakh in fake notes,” the source said.