Terrorists using women to smuggle fake currency

Rupees one hundred and seventy thousand crore (Rs 170,000 crore) is believed to be the amount of fake Indian currency that has been circulated in India in the past five years. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had said in a recent conference that fake currency continued to be India's primary concern in its war against terror.

Various security agencies have preparied reports on the issue and say most of the fake currency floating around has been pumped in in the past five years. While it is a known fact that Pakistan's Inter-Services-Intelligence continues to be the major sponsor of this activity, the worry is that despite steps being taken to counter this menace, they are deriving newer techniques to outwit security agencies.

Indian agencies have managed to stop smuggling of counterfeit notes from the Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan borders, to a large extent. This has prompted the terror groups to shift their focus to Dubai and Saudi Arabia to send fake currency into India.

The IB believes that the terror groups have altered the manner in which they transporting fake currency. At first, terror operatives who used to infiltrate into the country were used as mules to transport fake currency. After this was exposed, they decided to use the migrant labour class working in the Middle East. However following a big haul in Hyderabad prior to the twin blasts, the ISI had no option but to change this modus operandi as well.

Now terror groups look to women to carry out this task. Signs of women being used to transport fake notes came to light when the Research and Analysis Wing picked up three women from Maharashtra while they were circulating fake currency.

Until six months ago, Maharashtra was a major landing ground for fake currency. However now operations are believed to have been shifted to Hyderabad, since terror groups feel that it is a safer bet following the 26/11 attacks. The IB says although the base has been shifted to Hyderabad, the remote control is still very much in Maharashtra.

Fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim's aide Hamza who was arrested recently revealed that Dawood helped a great deal in this racket and was constantly pumping fake notes along with consignments of arms and ammunition into India. He has been using his network in Dubai and other countries in the Gulf to further this operation, Hamza said.