ISI-Dawood network behind Kochi’s counterfeit currencies

Sleuths of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) have concluded that the Pakistan-made currencies aggregating Rs 24,18,000 seized the other day from a passenger at the Kochi international airport had come from the network of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Dawood Ibrahim. The DRI had arrested a Malayalee passenger who brought the counterfeit currencies by an Emirates flight from Dubai, but the persons who were supposed to receive the package had escaped.

Sources said that the same Kozhikode-based gang with international connections that had tried to smuggle in counterfeit currencies aggregating Rs 78 lakh in 2008 through the Kochi airport was behind the new operation also. The objective of the network was destabilization of the Indian economy by developing a parallel monetary system inside the country with imported Pak-made “Indian” currencies, they said.

The DRI has learned that the counterfeit currencies are being manufactured in Quetta in Pakistan and that Dawood is heading the ISI-supervised wing that ships them to Dubai for smuggling into India. It is said that Dawood kin Anees Ibrahim is in charge of this operation. The directorate has also learned that Dawood henchman and ISI operative Aftar Bhatki is the man supervising the operations of the racket in Dubai.

According to sources, the racket is using sea and air routes to reach the counterfeit currencies in bulk packages to India and less-guarded air and sea ports in Kerala are its favourite thresholds. Kerala is selected as a safer destination for the packages also because of the availability of pro-Jihad elements belonging to various extremist outfits.

The directorate now knows that Kozhikode is one of the main bases of such elements in South India. The two persons who were supposed to receive the bag containing the fake currencies from Emirates passenger Gopinath of Alappuzha at Kochi airport the other day were also from Kozhikode.

Sources said the method of the operatives of the ISI-Dawood network was that they would hand over the “consignments” to unsuspecting Malayalee workers bound for home using their friends, with instructions to deliver them to specific people. Officials said Gopinath, an ordinary welder, could have been tricked by the network through this method. Gopinath had told the DRI that one of his friends had given him the bag saying it contained toys for children.

According to sources, the racket prefers spending the Pak-made counterfeit currencies in other states of South India because they fear that Keralites have a tendency of “suspecting everything” and could identify fakes without difficulty.

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