12.7.10

Near-perfect fake currency

The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan seems to have further perfected itself in the ‘art’ of fake currency making. The fake Indian currency notes (FICNs), supposedly coming from the ISI stable, and recovered recently by the Indian security agencies were so ‘genuine-looking’ that it has set alarm bells ringing across India. What has stunned the security agencies is the fact that the recovered FICNs have the latest strengthened security features that were introduced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently. Designed by using the state-of-the-art technology and incorporated in recently introduced 2AQ and 8AC series, the features were so exclusive that they could only be copied at a well-equipped full-fledged currency printing set-up. It included use of optical variable ink (OVI) and colour shift security thread (CSST) apart from premier quality paper and printing that was far superior to the fake notes circulated earlier. Surprisingly, the seized copies of the Rs 1,000 denomination notes are said to be so close to the genuine ones that the RBI had to issue an advisory to all the government, private and foreign banks to thoroughly screen all notes of the 2AQ and 8AC series, for genuinety. The RBI has, in the advisory, stated that the seized FICNs were so close to the real ones that they were undetectable by the naked eye. They had to be passed through Currency Verification and Processing Systems (CVPSs) and Notes Sorting Machines (NSMs) which declared then “suspected” or “rejected”, the advisory stated.

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