Police nab youth in fake foreign currency scam

Updated on: 02 August,2011 07:23 AM IST |
A Correspondent |

A 20-year-old con man's latest attempt at making a quick buck was thwarted by alert shopkeepers in Russell Market area of Shivaji Nagar

A 20-year-old con man's latest attempt at making a quick buck was thwarted by alert shopkeepers in Russell Market area of Shivaji Nagar.

Representation Pic

Mohammed Meraj hailing from Delhi is part of an Uttar Pradesh-based gang, which has cheated several people of lakhs of rupees with a fake foreign currency exchange scam.

Meraj had earlier cheated Rizwan Sait, a cloth merchant from Gurappanapalya, of Rs 4 lakh and Sait had filed a complaint, following which the police informed other shopkeepers about such activities by an unknown gang.
The information paid off and shopkeepers alerted the Shivaji Nagar police after Meraj was spotted in the area offering to exchange foreign currency.

Shivaji Nagar Police Inspector K S Venkatesh Naidu rushed to the spot with a team and nabbed the accused and recovered US $20 and Rs 1,000 from him.

The accused, including a woman used to lure shopkeepers with fake US dollars and Saudi Riyals claiming to have currency notes, valued in the thousands, and pretend that they needed to exchange the same urgently and were willing to do so at unbelievable exchange rates.

Once the deal is clinched, they would hand over bundles of currency sized pieces of paper covered with a few genuine currency notes and even used to conceal bars of soap within to make it heavier, the police said. The exchange of money happened quickly and they would vanish from the spot before the victims realised what had happened.