FICN Malegaon Link; Cleric, Principal, Doctor Ran Fake Currency Racket

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): A gang of three — Muslim cleric, government school principal and a suspended government doctor — was involved in printing and circulating Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) and had links to Malegaon, officials said on Monday.

Seven arrests have been made in 23 days across Maharashtra and MP, with racket mastermind Dr Prateek Navlakhe and two aides being the latest to be picked up from a flat in Bhopal.

On October 30, a Muslim cleric from Burhanpur district, Maulana Zubair, was arrested in Malegaon in Maharashtra’s Nashik district along with aide Nazir. Two days later, Maharashtra police seized Rs 10 lakh FICN from Zubair and Nazir, which they were allegedly supplying to buyers in Maharashtra. Acting on information from their questioning, Madhya Pradesh police raided an Imambara in Pethia village of Khandwa district on November 2, recovering Rs 19.78 lakh FICN.

Zubair allegedly worked as note-cutter and courier for the racket. Based on his and Nazir’s statements and specific intelligence inputs, Khandwa district police’s SIT traced mastermind Dr Navlakhe three weeks later and arrested him from a rented flat in Bhopal on Sunday. He was caught along with aides Dinesh Gore, acting principal of a government school in Dharni-Amravati (Maharashtra), and Gopal alias Rahul Pawar.

Khandwa SP Manoj Rai said FICN worth Rs 25,000, nine mobile phones, a laptop, 32 ATM cards, 15 cheque books, a drier machine and other incriminating material were seized from the trio. “Navlakhe’s arrest from Bhopal is a major breakthrough, as he has emerged as the real mastermind. The laptop seized from the house in Bhopal contains details and designs of FICNs,” he said.

Navlakhe, a former doctor posted at Burhanpur district hospital, was suspended in 2022 over multiple fraud cases, including allegedly selling hospital equipment worth Rs 25 lakh as scrap. He had also been named in other fraud cases and is suspected to have been involved in cricket betting, hawala deals and human trafficking in the past.