A 28-year-old Bengali film actor was arrested by the crime branch on Wednesday for his involvement in circulation of fake currency notes.
According to the police, the actor used to buy expensive articles from malls using counterfeit notes and would
sell them at half the price to retailers. During his interrogation, the actor admitted that he did this to make quick money.
Earlier, officers had arrested his four associates, including three Bangladeshi nationals, while they were looking for him.
Babloo Shaikh (28), who was a side-actor in a Bengali film Aapun Holopaur and was shooting for another Hindi film Teen Khoka was arrested from the Malda district in West Bengal by the Mumbai crime branch officers.
“Shaikh was wanted in a fake currency case in which we had earlier arrested three Bangladeshis, including a woman and an Indian national. We recovered notes in denominations of `500 and `1,000 worth `8.10 lakh from them,” said a crime branch officer from Unit 12 of the crime branch.
The officer said that Shaikh used to smuggle the counterfeit currency into West Bengal from Bangladesh, with the
help of the quartet. “Shaikh and his accomplices used to buy
expensive articles from shops and malls of big cities and then sell them off to retail shops. He would get 50 per cent of the proceeds. During interrogation he told us that he thought this was a good technique to make some quick money,” he said.
The police also recovered `25,000 worth fake notes from Shaikh. “We will now try to find out whether there are any other people involved with the arrested accused. The quality of these notes are too good and one cannot make out with a naked eye whether they are fake, unless one goes through the security features of the original notes,” he said.
The police has booked the five under Sections 489 (A), 489 (C) and 34 of the Indian Penal Code.