Thaindian News

Kathmandu, May 6 (IANS) A three-star hotel in capital city Kathmandu’s premier business location became the venue chosen by Indian currency counterfeiters to run their operations in Nepal and beyond.

Gangjong Hotel in Kathmandu’s Lazimpat area, a favourite destination of Chinese tourists to Nepal, was chosen by Thai citizen Anubhat Sahib to bring in fake Indian notes from Thailand and smuggle them to India across the porous land border using Nepali couriers.

Acting on a tip-off, a special police squad arrested the Thai from the hotel last month, catching him red handed with over Rs.4 million fake Indian currency.

The Thai told his police interrogators that he had flown in the cache on a Thai Airways flight with plans to send it to India via Birgunj city on the Indo-Nepal border. He had reportedly visited Nepal four times earlier.

Police also arrested the Thai’s Nepali accomplice, Ishwar Prasad Shah Teli, from the hotel. Teli is a resident of Bara district on the Indo-Nepal border.

Less than a month after the arrests, police raided a room in the same hotel Wednesday, unearthing a second cache of fake Indian currency.

According to police, they received information that people from Nepal’s southern plains were involved in buying and selling fake Indian notes.

Acting on the second tip-off, police said they raided Room 362 of the hotel where a 41-year-old Nepali, Nawal Kishore Yadav, was staying.

Searches found a suitcase containing fake Indian notes to the tune of over Rs.800,000, carefully hidden in a box marked Johnson’s Baby Powder.

Yadav has been arrested and investigations are on, police said.