CHATTOGRAM: Traders as well as common people are now afraid of fake notes of Tk 500 and Tk 1,000 denominations during transactions amid reports of counterfeit currency seizures.
Law enforcement authorities in recent times seized
fake note printing materials from a den of criminals in the district.
Fake notes of Tk 500 and Tk 1,000 in transactions are now rampant in the city as the traders remain very busy ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr festival.
During the Eid-ul-Fitr, a section of shoppers is inclined to preserve specimen of a Tk 1,000 or Tk 500 fake note under the glass of the managers' cash boxes to identify fake notes.
A number of shop owners at the Kazir Dewri VIP Tower Shopping Centre, New Market, Terri Bazar and Akhtaruzzaman Centre at Agrabad were seen preserving such fake notes to avoid being cheated.
Police sources said, law enforcers seized fake notes of Tk 1,000 denomination worth Tk 31,500. Md Faruk was arrested from the Station Road area opposite Paristhan, a shopping mall in the Reazuddin Bazar under Kotwali in the port city, on Saturday night.
On April 11, the police in another raid seized fake notes worth Tk 3.0 million from the city's New Market area and arrested two persons - Anwar Hossain (32), son of Abdus Sukkur of Hajipara under Lohagara police station and Zaved Hossain (22), son of Shamsul Islam of Lohagara.
Acting on information received from the arrested
persons, the law enforcers raided a house under the Lohagara police station and seized a laptop, CPU, fake note printing machine, note cutting machine and 309 notes of Tk 1,000 and 105 notes of Tk 500 denomination as those were being printed.
Sharif Chowdhury, a businessman at the Akhtaruzzaman Centre at Agrabad said the businesspeople are scared of fake notes during the last few days of the Eid-ul-Fitr sales as the buyers rush for making last-minute purchases.
The shoppers in their malls are cautious and make the transactions carefully. Plainclothes policemen have also been deployed in and around the markets in to keep an eye on the movement of suspected people in guise of buyers.
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