New Delhi: Delhi Police has registered cases after complaints from 18 banks that nearly 11,000 counterfeit currency notes, valued at Rs 34 lakh, were deposited with them. The cases were registered on Dec 31 last year, and the notes were recovered during the period from Jan 1 to June 30.
One private sector bank alone detected over 4,000 currency notes with a total face value of around Rs 16 lakh. A different bank reported that it received and identified 3,274 fake notes, collectively valued at around Rs 5.9 lakh. Meanwhile, another bank flagged 782 counterfeit notes, which amounted to Rs 2.9 lakh, highlighting the continued circulation of fake currency across multiple banking channels. The notes were sent to a forensic lab for further investigation. As per the guidelines of Reserve Bank of India, every bank is required to report counterfeit notes to the police twice a year. One of the banks reported that the counterfeit currency was detected during routine verification procedures. Officials noticed discrepancies while examining key security features, including the paper quality, security strip and watermark. Cases were registered under Section 180 (Possession of forged or counterfeit coin, govt stamp, currency-notes or bank-notes) of BNS. A senior police officer said that in several cases, investigators found fake currency notes being carefully stashed and later deposited in banks in a way that made detection extremely difficult. According to him, the counterfeit notes were mixed between original currency notes, making it hard to identify them. He explained that because of this method, tracing the fake notes back to the original source from where they were circulated became a major challenge for law enforcement agencies. Police also questioned individuals who deposited such notes in banks, but most of them claimed they were unaware of how the fake currency came into their possession. The police corroborated their statements during the investigation. In many cases, no direct link to the main network could be established, further complicating efforts to dismantle the entire operation.
