- Four men made fake notes after watching YouTube videos.
- Accused posed as police to extort genuine money.
- Police seized Rs 6.78 crore fake notes, busted racket.
In a shocking case, four men from Hyderabad made counterfeit notes after watching YouTube videos. The accused posed as police officials and threatened people and had taken their original notes. Telangana police busted the counterfeit racket operating from a rented house on the outskirts of Hyderabad and seized fake notes amounting to Rs 6.78 crores.
How was the racket uncovered?
The racket was uncovered on November 1. The Abdullapurmet police, along with the Shadnagar Special Operations Team (SOT), intercepted a car near Ramoji Film City on National Highway 65. Police recovered counterfeit Rs 500 notes worth Rs 8 lakh from the vehicle and arrested its four occupants. The four arrested accused have been identified as Madupoju Karnakar, Chinnolla Manikya Reddy, Cherukupelly Rathnakar Reddy and Karanam Ajay Kumar. Three other accused are absconding, and efforts are underway to trace them.
The officials traced the operation to a rented house in Kuntloor on the outskirts of Hyderabad, where they allegedly found a counterfeit currency printing unit. A set 134 bundles of counterfeit Rs 500 notes, estimated to be worth around Rs 6.70 crore, were seized from the premises. Several colour printers, scanners, a laptop, a lamination machine and equipment used for cutting currency notes were seized from the house.
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What did the accused prepare for the setup?
According to the police officials, the prime accused, Karnakar, learnt to manufacture fake currency notes by watching YouTube videos. The four, including Karnakar, scanned original Rs 500 notes and used image-editing software, including Photoshop, to modify the images before printing counterfeit versions.
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Firstly, the accused planned to circulate the Rs 3 to 4 lakhs of fake notes in exchange of Rs 1 lakh of original notes. However, this plan did not attract many buyers. The group then posed as police officials and threatened prospective buyers and flee with their genuine money, police said. The accused allegedly cheated two prospective customers of Rs 2 lakh and Rs 3 lakh in separate incidents.