Two men arrested for using fake currency to buy biryani and other items in Mumbai

MUMBAI: Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) police on May 3 arrested two men for allegedly using fake currency to buy biryani and other food items and shopped for almost two weeks, spending a total value of Rs60,000 worth of fake Indian currency that they had made using white bond papers and a colour printer. The duo, a second-year hotel management dropout Ali Mehdi Sayyad (26) and his aide Naushad Shah (36), a tailor, used smaller denomination notes of Rs10, Rs50, and Rs100 for shopping and paying hotel bills.These notes were not checked or doubted, unlike the higher denomination notes like Rs500, said the BKC police.
The duo was apprehended based on a tip-off, and the police team confiscated a colour printer, 600 sheets of high-quality bond paper, a scale, a cutter, fake notes amounting to Rs55,000, and Rs80,000 that they had successfully circulated in the market. "These fake notes look like a genuine. But observed closely will come to know that the security features missing. They only began producing counterfeit notes about a month and a half ago,” said a police officer of the BKC police station.
The police received a tip-off after the duo was found selling fake notes worth Rs10,000 for the original ones priced at Rs5000. Acting on the information, DCP (Zone VIII) Dikshit Gedam oversaw the team consisting of BKC police senior inspector Raghunath Kadam, inspector Rajesh Gawli, assistant inspector Santosh Kamble, and detection staff. They set a trap and confiscated the counterfeit notes and other items from Shah's residence in an SRA building at Pattar Nagar in Bandra (East) on May 3.
A police officer said Sayyad came up with the idea of creating counterfeit notes after learning techniques from YouTube. Sayyad then got in touch with Shah and arranged the machine and papers to print the notes at his home. They successfully distributed counterfeit notes in the market to settle hotel expenses and purchase luxury clothing. The officer mentioned that both individuals are married, and their family members were unaware of their actions.
The pair is currently in police custody until May 8. They have been charged under the sections of the Indian Penal Code for counterfeiting currency notes.