Investigations have revealed that the six persons, arrested in connection with the seizure of dummy and fake Indian and foreign notes with face "value" of Rs 87 crore, used to procure them from Hyderabad and Mumbai, a police official said on Monday.
All the six accused, including an Army man, were on Monday produced before a local court which extended their police remand till June 20.
"As per investigations, the accused had purchased dummy Indian currency notes from 'Children Bank of India' from Crawford Market in Mumbai and dummy USD bills from Hyderabad," said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Bachchan Singh.
In a joint operation on Wednesday, the Pune police and the Army's intelligence wing carried out raids in Viman Nagar here and seized fake Indian currency, mostly dummy bills of 'Children Bank of India', and US dollars with a face "value" of Rs 87 crore.
The accused were identified by the police as Shaikh Alim Gulab Khan, a serving Army man, Sunil Sarda, Ritesh Ratnakar, Tufail Ahmed Mohammad Ishaq Khan, Abdul Gani Khan and Abdul Rehman Abdul Ghani Khan.
According to the police, the gang was operating here for the last seven-eight months, and used to target people with black money.
"Their modus operandi was to exchange US currency with Indian currency or vice-versa," a police officer with the Crime Branch had said last week.
The gang would dupe customers by passing off bundles of fake notes with genuine bills on the top in exchange of real currency, he had said.
If a customer questioned the source of cash, the accused would tell him that they were descendants of the Nizams (erstwhile rulers of Hyderabad), he said.
"They had even put pictures of the Nizam outside their bungalow," the official had said.
