Surat: The city police on Wednesday dismantled a racket involved in producing fake Indian Currency Notes (FICNs) in Limbayat and apprehended three individuals. Police seized counterfeit notes with a face value of Rs 9.36 lakh.

In a joint operation, the Special Operations Group (SOG) and the Prevention of Crime Branch (PCB) detained Firoz Shah (46), Babulal Kapasiya (41), and Safiq Ismail Khan (53) from an establishment owned by Shah, situated behind the Madina mosque in Limbayat.

Law enforcement confiscated 1,635 notes with a face value of Rs 500 and 593 notes with a face value of Rs 200, along with 311 paper pieces, a color printer, a cutting machine, and an ID card from a news channel. Shah operated a weekly newspaper titled ‘Surat Herald’ and a news portal named ‘SH NEWS 24*7’.

The main accused, Shah, produced fake notes after learning from online tutorials. It was found that the accused had already circulated approximately Rs 3 lakh worth of these fake notes in the market. DeshGujarat