Two held with fake 2,000 currency notes

​Hyderabad: Two local businessmen were on Wednesday arrested and fake notes having a face value of Rs 6.20 lakh in denomination of Rs 2,000 were seized from them.

Acting on credible information, sleuths of the Special Operation Team of Rachakonda Commissionerate arrested the duo, Sakethwala Ramesh and Mohd Riyaz Baba, after raiding the latter's house in Ibrahimpatnam, police said. Another accused Mohammed Hazi is at large.

The sleuths seized fake notes with a face value of Rs 6.20 lakh from their possession, the police said, adding the counterfeit currencies were in denomination of Rs 2,000 notes.

The new Rs 2,000 notes were released in November last year following the demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 bills. Ramesh is the kingpin of the racket and he was arrested in November last year along with seven others in a similar case, it said.

Inspector of Special Operations Team (SOT), LB Nagar zone, K Narsing Rao said Ramesh was the kingpin of the fake currency circulation gang. He was earlier arrested on November 26, 2016 as he attempted to circulate bogus notes which were photocopies of the original Rs 2,000 currency notes.

Ramesh had concealed the fake currency notes in the house of Riyaz. He was released from the prison on January 20 and since then he had planned to circulate the fake currency notes hidden with Riyaz, the Inspector said.