Joynal Abedin Khan :
Currency note forgers have become active across the country, including capital Dhaka ahead of the Eid-ul-Fitr.
Taking advantage of the rush of Eid shopping and mad rush of home-goers to celebrate this greatest religious festival with the near and dear ones, the forger gangs are spreading fake notes of different denominations through their agents in the markets and various other important places in the country, police sources said.
A number of traders in city alleged that fake money traders are supplying the notes at different markets taking advantage of the Eid when people hardly have chance to check each and every note they handle each other. The gangs are more active to cheat mainly the common people defying the Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s (DMP) forgery money detection machines in shopping malls and trading centres.
Detective Branch (DB) of police arrested five people along with fake currency notes amounting to Tk 1.83 lakh in the city’s Mirpur area on July 14 this year.
In another incident, the DB members arrested two persons with fake notes worth around Tk 6 lakh in the city’s Jatrabari area on July 19.
Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP) recovered fake notes worth around Tk 66,000 from two men whom they were arrested at Chittagong’s Oxygen area on July 19.
Police arrested five people along with fake currency notes amounting to Tk 3.22 lakh in the city’s Hazaribag area on July 11 this year.
Police arrested one person with fake notes of Tk 500 and 1,000 denominations at Khalishpur in Khulna city on July 21,
Some unscrupulous bank officials, local criminals and even some corrupt public representative are allegedly involved with the fake currency syndicates, DB sources said.
Police sources said, the fake money traders are bringing in currency-making equipment and chemicals from neighboring India through different border points.
A gang on the other side of the Bangladesh-India border is producing fake currency and supplying that to different places across the country through their local agents, sources said.
The gangs which have been sheltered by a section of corrupt politicians in exchange of huge amount of money have a strong network across the country, they added.
Although the law enforcers and Bangladesh Bank have taken measures to resist money forging gangs, they could not achieve notable success.
Meanwhile, the central bank and the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) have distributed a number of fake-note detection machines to the big shopping centres of the capital.
Nur Hossain, inspector of City Detective Branch said that they are trying to decrease the exchange of forged notes across the country. He said that they have arrested many people in this connection and filed around two hundred cases in this connection.
