AHMEDABAD: The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which has taken over the fake currency notes case cracked by the Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) in the first week of November, is hunting for Tahir Shaikh of Malda in West Bengal. The Gujarat ATS had arrested Sanjay Devaliya of Junagadh with high quality Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) of Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 denominations, with the face value of Rs 1.52 lakh. Police were shocked to find security features such as the watermark and thread in the notes.Top ATS sources said that they had handed over the accused and the case papers to NIA. “During the investigation it came to light that Suresh Lathidariya from Bhavnagar, currently lodged in the Kolkata jail, used to run the FICN racket from the jail through Tahir Shaikh,” a source said. Lathidariya was arrested by the NIA in January 2017. At that time, he had fake notes in his possession. Lathidariya has emerged as the mastermind of the racket, sources said. Sources said that Shaikh is believed to have supplied fake currency notes at the Farakka railway station in West Bengal to Devaliya. “During interrogation, Devaliya confessed that Lathidariya was his handler.Senior sources from the agency said that they will question Lathidariya while the hunt is under way for Shaikh with the help of various intelligence and security agencies. “We suspect that the fake notes seized by the Gujarat ATS officials were printed in Pakistan and then smuggled into Bangladesh with the help the Pakistani spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI,” said a senior official of the investigating agency. “The fake notes have been supplied to other states as well,” he said.

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