They're in it together. Pakistani counterfeiters and Indian gangsters are literally minting money dealing in fake and illegal Indian currency using Nepal as the transit point, police sources say. In the last five years, Rs 2.6 million fake and Rs 10 million illegal Indian notes have been seized, but sources say this is just the tip of the iceberg. The handlers of these notes who are caught, are usually small fry and the big fish get away. Recent detentions of people in posession of counterfeit and illegal Indian currency, like a Kathmandu-based Pakistani diplomat, some Indian criminals and a Nepali journalist, are reportedly low in the food chain.

The arrest of a Pakistani Embassy staff on charges of possessing fake Indian currency on 18 August has once again dragged the Pakistani mission in Kathmandu into controversy. The police claim they had no idea the man was an employee of the embassy. "Had we known beforehand, we could have recovered a bigger amount of fake Indian currency from him," a police official told us. The embassy, denied its staffers are involved in fake currency and says the arrest was part of a "conspiracy".

The business bureau chief of Annapurna Post Lokendra KC was arrested at Kathmandu airport on 9 August with fake currency worth IRs1.3 million in a false bottomed suitcase. Police believe the money was headed for India via Simra. Indian nationals arrested recently on fake currency charges, including known gangsters Papu Yadav, Hareram Chaudhary, Indu Singh Yadav and Raju Khan have admitted to government lawyers that they were going to exchange IRs 900,000 worth of fake Indian notes with valid currency in Nepal. Although they were caught red-handed, the police recovered only IRs 6,000.

We may have to deal with Nepali currency too, thanks to Indian and Pakistani gangs. Noor Hasan Miya, an Indian citizen, was apprehended with 35 fake Rs 1,000 Nepali notes. He told the police that he hid them at his tailoring shop at Bagbazaar after receiving them from Ravindra Aftab, also an Indian national.

Indian criminals and Pakistani officials arrested in the past five years have given police enough evidence that Nepal is a convenient conduit for counterfeiters running fake notes into India.
(Shiva Gaunle)