VISAKHAPATNAM: Alert Visakhapatnam Police on Thursday arrested three members of a gang on charges of circulating counterfeit currency notes in Visakhapatnam. Police seized fake notes in denominations of Rs 2,000, Rs 500 and Rs 100 with a face value of Rs 7.32 lakh from them. Fake currency notes of around Rs 1.7 lakh have already been circulated at Rythu Bazaars and several shops in the city, Police confirmed. Police have identified the accused as B Appalanaidu (46), a resident of Gajuwaka, K Ganga Maheswara Rao (47) from Pithapuram and Ch Srinivas (40) of Rajamahendravaram. Mr A S Khan, Joint Commissioner of Police, JCP, while presenting the accused and seized currency notes here said, “The accused printed the fake currency notes using a colour photocopying machine in Rajamahendravaram and started to circulate those in Visakhapatnam a month ago”. The gang has printed fake currency notes worth Rs 9 lakh in denominations of Rs 2,000, Rs 500 and Rs 100, of which they managed to circulate around Rs 1.7 lakh in the city, according to Police. Srinivas, a accused among the gang was jailed in a murder case at Rajanagaram, where he met K Ganga Maheswara Rao who was serving terms after getting caught in the fake currency racket busted in West Godavari district. Mr Khan added, to make up for their losses, the duo decided to team up and resorted to printing of counterfeit currency again. Appalanaidu, a friend of Ganga Maheswara Rao, joined them later. The Police acting on a tip-off raided several places at Rajamahendravaram and Gajuwaka, and seized the counterfeit notes. ]]>
