5 held for trying to deposit fake notes in bank

Balasore: Police on Sunday arrested five persons for depositing fake currency worth Rs 44,000 at Khirikona Seva Cooperative Samiti.

The accused have been identified as Satyanarayan Panda, Tarakant Biswal, Salim, Sk Rizuan and Manoranjan Barik.

All the accused were arrested by Semulia police while carrying out investigation into deposit of fake notes in the Samiti.

According to reports, one Bishnu Nayak had earlier deposited Rs 1.50 lakh and out of which Rs 44,000 was found to be fake on April 10.

Later, cops had detained Nayak and he revealed the source from where he had got the money.

"We had formed special teams and raids were conducted at different places in the district. We have seized Rs 1.48 lakh fake notes in Rs 2,000 denomination and arrested five persons," said Balasore SDPO (Sadar), Pravash Chandra Pal.

Though it is suspected the accused are part of a major counterfeit currency racket, further investigation to ascertain the source of procurement of the fake notes is still on, Pal added.