Kathmandu, February 10

Police raided two rented rooms in a house at Ganeshthan of Tokha Municipality-10 and confiscated counterfeit Nepali currency notes with face value of Rs 150,000.

Acting on information, a special team deployed from Gongabu-based Metropolitan Police Sector raided a room in the house of Gautam Shripali and held Pom Bahadur Kunwar in possession fake currency notes with face value of Rs 141,000.

According to Central Police News Section, the cops also raided the rented room of Hikmat Miya in the same house and recovered fake banknotes with face value of Rs 9,000. Miya was not in the room when the cops carried out the raid. Officials said search for him was on.

Police recovered Rs 141,000 from a cupboard in the room of Kunwar, while Miya had concealed the fake banknotes under the bed. Officials suspected that the duo were involved in producing and circulating fake currency notes. The fake banknotes are in the denomination of Rs 1,000. According to Deputy Superintendent of Police Hobindra Bogati at Metropolitan Police Range, a meticulous observation is required to know that the notes are not genuine and thus many people might have been defrauded by the duo. Genuine note feels rough when one runs his/her fingers through it, but fake notes lack this feature.

Generally, fake Nepali currency lack raised watermark, words and metallic thread. MPR has also appealed to all to be cautious while carrying out cash transactions. DSP Bogati said racketeers often circulated fake notes by also tucking them between genuine ones.

On October 21, police had arrested five persons with fake notes with face value of Rs 370,000 from Machchhegaun of Kirtipur. Equipment, ink and papers used for producing counterfeit banknotes were also confiscated from them. Earlier, police had arrested six persons with counterfeit currency notes with face value of Rs 26.06 million from different places of Kathmandu and Lalitpur in May.