RBI unearths fake currency scam in a UP bank

After a recent unwrapping of provident fund scam involving judges in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, another scam this time in Siddharth Nagar district has been uncovered.

A team of senior officials of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) captured fake Indian currency with a face value of Rs 20 lakh from the Dumariaganj branch of the State Bank of India on Monday. Apart from that another 70 lakh scam has been exposed. RBI officials also found that Rs 70 lakh were also missing from the chest. A case has been filed against the bank cashier along with twenty others.

The racket involved in fake note scam busted in the joint operation of RBI officials and the UP police. The bank is situated near the Nepal’s border. The currency is made available to other branches from SBI’s this (Dumariaganj) branch.

“The racket has been thriving with the connivance of the bank staff, who were clearly found to be involved in clandestine replacement of notes with fake currency,” stated the Additional DGP Brij Lal.

The operation has its genesis in last week’s arrest of four people with wads of counterfeit currency notes in Dumariaganj town, he said.

On July 28, cashier of the same branch, Sudhakar Tripathi was arrested soon after Abid alias Pundit’s arrest who named him for running a fake currency racket by the Special Task Force (STF) on the instigation of the state police. Fake notes in denominations of Rs 1000 and Rs 500 with a face value of Rs 5 lakh was recovered from Abid’s house.

The STF then in its letter urged the RBI officials to screen currency in the vaults and chests of banks particularly those situated in the interiors of seven districts along with Nepal border.

Bank chest is the main vault of a nationalised bank in every district where branches of all other bank in the district keep their safe deposits to use as running cash.

The manager of the branch, Dashrath Chirgainya, said the currency chest had about Rs 184 crore. The bank has a good turnover with a daily transaction of over Rs 1 crore owing to the people of Duamariganj most of whom work in Gulf countries and Mumbai.

More raids are expected to be conducted in the coming days as most of the banks existed at the border areas are already under police scanner.