Coimbatore police on Sunday busted a gang printing and circulating counterfeit currency notes in RS Puram area of the city, seizing fake notes worth Rs 11 lakh and 57 thousand along with scanning and printing machines and other items. A total of four men have been arrested and the police are on the look out for two more on the run.
The accused have been identified as A Dhanraj (35) of Virudhunagar, S Ranjith (23) of Ganapathy, C Praveen Kumar (23) of Pappireddipatti in Dharmapuri, and V Boopathy (26) of Kasipalayam in Erode.
On Saturday, Praveen Kumar, an IAS aspirant, and Boopathy, a marketing executive, had visited a stationery store in Gandhi Park area, paying for a Rs 10 item with a conspicuous-looking Rs 100 note. Upon suspecting the note to be fake, the shopkeeper John Jacko, with help from those in the vicinity caught the two youngsters and handed them over to RS Puram police.
Upon investigating the two, 31 fake Rs 100 notes were seized from the them. Praveen Kumar and Boopathy also led the police to the kingpin of the operation, Dhanraj who resided at Idikarai.
A special team headed by deputy commissioner of police P Perumal found out that Dhanraj an electrician from Idikarai has been printing fake currencies for the past three months. Dhanraj printed all notes ranging from Rs 50 to Rs 2000.
Dhanraj who befriended Ranjith a few months ago offered five fake currency notes in exchange for a real note to the latter. Ranjith then began circulating the notes in Gandhipuram and Ganapathy areas.
According to reports, Ranjith had in turn employed Praveen Kumar and Boopathy to form the next layer in their network and the two youths would reportedly receive three counterfeit notes in exchange for one real note.
Speaking to TNM, Deputy Commissioner Perumal says that the accused have been arrested and remanded. “FIR has been filed under IPC section 489 b (using counterfeit notes (non-bailable), c (possession of counterfeit notes (bailable) and d (making counterfeit notes (non-bailable).”