Six suspects held over fake currency bills

Lucknow: A six-member gang allegedly involved in printing and circulating fake currency notes has been arrested in Uttar Pradesh, police said.

"The six were nabbed on Friday night from a hideout in Premnagar area in Bareilly [some 250km from state capital Lucknow]," police inspector Chandra Pal Singh said on Saturday.

Those arrested hail from different districts of the state and have confessed to printing and supplying counterfeit currency notes through their "agents" in various parts of Uttar Pradesh and the neighbouring states of Uttarakhand, Bihar and Jharkhand, Singh said.

Fake currency notes to the tune of Rs80,000 (Dh5,968) were seized from the gang. Several computers and printers used for the clandestine operations were also recovered from the hideout.

Uttar Pradesh is turning into a hub for counterfeiters exploiting the porous and largely unguarded border with Nepal, according to the police.

In August last, a Reserve Bank of India team unearthed counterfeit currency amounting to over 5 million rupees from the currency chest of the State Bank of India's Domariaganj branch in Siddharthnagar district.

This followed the arrest of the bank's chief cashier and recovery of a large amount of both genuine and fake currency from his house.