Even cops needed experts for these notes

Srivastava added that the police party recovered fake currency notes worth Rs 4.1 lakhs from Abid’s possession. Abid, investigations revealed, had murdered a Customs official, Santosh Palone, in 1994 on the orders of Aftab Butki, a Dawood associate based in Dubai. Butki, owned an STD PCO in the Jama Masjid area from where he also ran a hawala racket, police said. It was added that he later moved to Dubai giving charge of the PCO to Abid who carried out smuggling and hawala transactions from there with the help of locals Nabi and Saleem. Abid also confessed to have worked as a hitman, along with one Iqbal from Mumbai, police added.

The Rs 500 notes seized are suspected to have been printed by the ISI of Pakistan. The quality of the currency notes, police said “is very good” and can not be distinguished by the common man easily.

DCP Srivastava, while displaying the seized currency, said that the police had to consult experts before they could say with certainty that the notes were fake. The notes also carry the water-mark, usually not found in fake currency seized so far in New Delhi, ACP Ravi Shankar, who headed the operation said.The arrests, Srivastava said, have blown the lid off the links between the Dubai underworld and the ISI of Pakistan. He added that the fake currency was sourced by the ISI and routed to India through the border using carriers working for Dawood’s men.

Interrogations have also revealed that Abid was involved in threatening a Jor Bagh-based businessman for extortions on the behest of Bukti. Srivastava said that the arrest of Devinder Singh, allegedly a petty local goon and pick-pocket, also points out at the Dubai mafia recruiting small-time criminals “at the grass-roots level” to further their operations in New Delhi and Mumbai. Saleem is a resident of Matia Mahal while Nabi, who was earlier a small-time goon in Patna, moved to New Delhi and started committing petty crimes, he added.

Pak firm gets mafia to scare Indian defaulter

*A nationalised financial institution of Pakistan which failed to recover the money it loaned to a businessman from New Delhi allegedly approached the Dubai mafia, through the ISI Pakistan, to recover the money, police officials said today.

A prominent businessman, now living in Jor Bagh, had lived in Dubai for nearly 20 years where he borrowed money from individuals and financial institutions including the one from Pakistan, DCP (Crime) P K Srivastava said. He added that the man’s business in Dubai ran into losses and he still has to repay loans to the tune of about Rs 25 Crore. “After the legal channels of realisation of money failed, the Pakistani financial institution approached the ISI to recover the money through Dubai. Aftab Butki asked his men in New Delhi (Abid, Nabi and another associate) to recover the money,” Srivastava added.

The official revealed that the three had receed the businessman’s house in Jor Bagh and his Tilak Nagar factory and even fired a shot outside the hosue two months ago to scare him. The police added that the businessman had made two complaints regarding the extortion threats made to him by the three.

The businessman was not available for comment at his Jor Bagh house this evening.