4 held for fake currency circulation

Tirupati: Police arrested four people, including three members of same family, for circulating fake currency notes. They also seized one printing machine, papers, ink etc., from the house located in Cherlopalli village near Tirupati on Monday.

Briefing the media, Puttur DSP Ravi Kumar said the arrested were identified as Ramesh, his wife Sandhya, daughter Esha and his friend Muni Krishna Rao, who is Ramesh’s Facebook friend. Muni Krishna, who is from Srikakulam, came to Tirupati and along with Ramesh started stock market consultancy. However, they suffered heavy loss in the business and both decided to take up fake currency notes printing. Through YouTube videos, the duo learnt printing of currency notes and procured all the required materials and printing machine. Ramesh’s wife Sandhya and daughter Esha were also involved in this fake currency rocket. They use to circulate fake currency notes of Rs 100 and Rs 500 denominations and exchanged them in Puttur, Srikalahasti and nearby towns.

When they were purchasing commodities with fake currency notes, a trader suspected the currency note is counterfeit and informed the police. Puttur police, led by DSP Ravi Kumar, arrested the four people.

DSP Ravi Kumar said the four-member gang admitted of printing fake currency notes to overcome the loss they suffered. He said as per preliminary investigation, so far, they had circulatedface currency notes with face value of Rs 10 lakh. The arrested were produced in the court and remanded for judicial custody. Investigation is in progress.