NAGPUR, JULY 23: Three more foreign nationals, including a man of Indian origin, were arrested on Thursday in connection with the international racket suspected of duping nationalised banks by encashing forged travellers cheques of American banks. The police seized a considerable number of travellers cheques as also Indian currencies from the trio.Two of the trio were found holding fake Brazilian passports while the third did not possess a passport at all, police sources said.They were identified as Johnson Idirika, who claims to be a native of Barbados in West Indies and was moving around without a passport, Dike S Bestmany Wokoreil and Amar Shamnyne Singh, both hailing from Sao Paolo in Brazil and holding fake passports of the same country.As it appears from the circumstances in which they were held, the three were unaware about the previous day's arrest of Danison Sampson and Larry Gomes Francis while they attempted to encash travellers cheques from the Gandhi Nagar branch of Canara Bank.Thethree reached here from Delhi by Andhra Pradesh Express on Thursday afternoon and straightaway headed for the bank when they were trapped by the police. In fact, the bankers were already on an alert after Wednesday's arrests and got in touch with the police as soon as the trio entered the bank.Police recovered cash worth Rs 2,160 from Johnson, US dollars 3,800 and Indian cash Rs 1,225 from Dike and another US dollars 3,600 and cash Rs 8,300 from Amar Singh.The latter, who migrated from India to settle in Brazil, told the police that he and the two others had started from Faridkot in Punjab on the night of Tuesday to reach Nagpur via Chandigarh and New Delhi.The arrests on Thursday only confirmed the suspicion about a larger gang of international criminals operating throughout the country with a base in New Delhi.Already, the Jabalpur police have sent a wireless to their counterparts here inquiring about Wednesday's arrested suspects since they too had lodged similar cases some days ago. Also,there were reports about similar encashments at Aurangabad and Pune. Some other members of the gang were also reported to be operating in Pakistan and other South Asian countries.Investigations revealed that these foreign nationals arrived in India from Brazil via Panama and Dhaka in Bangladesh. The local police have alerted the Intelligence Bureau about the arrests here.Meanwhile, Sampson and Francis were produced in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate P N Deshpande on Thursday afternoon by the Ambazari police. The court has remanded the duo to police custody till July 28.Senior police officials including Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone I) Sanjay Kumar and Assistant Commissioner of Police Kunwar Bharat Singh Dogra were personally supervising the probe. Ambazari PSO inspector V C Sayam is the investigating officer.
