CISF nabs note press officer in MP with stolen currency in

A Bank Note Press officer in Madhya Pradesh's Dewas district was apprehended by the CISF today for allegedly trying to steal freshly-minted currency notes by concealing them in his shoes.

The case was handed over to the police, which had seized crisp currency notes amounting to over Rs 90.59 lakh so far, following raids at the premises of the officer, Manohar Verma, Assistant Inspector General Hemendra Singh, who is also a spokesperson for the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), said here.

Verma was working as the deputy control officer in the Note Verification section of the high-security press, he added.
 

Singh said in the morning, fresh Rs 200 currency notes, totalling Rs 40,000, were recovered from Verma's shoes.

"The security staff on duty saw Verma hiding something discreetly in an empty wooden box kept in the corridor.

"He kept a watch on him through CCTV cameras and other means and then, intercepted him," he added.

As per procedure, the clothes and shoes of officers are not removed during checking when they go out of the high- security zone of the press.

It was suspected that the officer had taken out currency notes like this in the past, Singh said.

The CISF security team searched Verma's office and recovered over Rs 26.09 in cash from his drawer, while Rs 64.50 lakh in cash were recovered by the police from his residence, he added.

The seized notes are understood to be part of the rejected currency lot, owing to minor defects in printing.

"Such notes can easily be traded in the open market as the deficiencies in them are difficult to detect. There is a proper procedure to dispose of such notes within the press and none can take them out," Singh said.

The 185-acre Bank Note Press campus in Dewas district, which functions as an industrial unit of the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Limited (SPMCIL), is guarded by the CISF.

The SPMCIL is owned by the central government. It functions under the Department of Economic Affairs of the Union Finance Ministry.

The facility is engaged in printing bank notes, incorporating higher security features like Intaglio/Orlof printing, micro-tints, inter-lock designs, use of fluorescent and optically variable inks, among others, to thwart forgery of currency notes.