Bangkok hub of fake Indian currency notes

NEW DELHI: -- Thailand is the new hub of the racket to pump fake currency notes into India, in addition to traditional bases Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Intelligence agencies have found that D-company pointman Aftab Batki is using Bangkok to print counterfeit Indian currency. Chinese and South Korean carriers are then used to carry these into India.

IB and RAW revealed this to CBI on Thursday, outlining the Pakistani ISI’s plans to use Dawood Ibrahim’s network across Thailand, Nepal, Bangladesh, Dubai and India for financing terrorist activities and destabilising the Indian economy in the long run through circulation of fake Indian currency notes (FICNs).

A senior CBI official said the disclosures were an eyeopener if one looked at the huge gap between the actual circulation and seizures of FICNs. Official estimates put the number of FICNs in circulation at 61,000 million pieces (of different denominations) worth Rs 1,69,000 crore till the year 2000. The actual seizures were merely worth Rs 5.57 crore in 2002, Rs 5.29 crore in 2003, Rs 6.81 crore in 2004 and Rs 1.12 crore in 2005 (till March).

-- The Times of India 2005-08-20

One crore is ten million (one lakh is one hundred thousand). The rupee is roughly on a par with the baht so Rs. 1 crore is roughly ten million baht.

It seems Bangkok is now a regional hub for financial-services too.