Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of Navi Mumbai has arrested a man and a woman who had been printing fake notes from a lodge at Mahape in Navi Mumbai. The duo identified as Vivek Kumar Prembabu Peepal (35) and Ashwini Vishwanath Sarovde (36), had been staying in Krishna Palace lodge since last four months. The officials from FIU got a tip off about the same and hence a team from FIU raided the lodge room and found 13 mobile phones, scanner, printer and laptop from the room. The duo who identified themselves as rakhi siblings which the officials are yet to verify, have been unemployed since last one year.
Sarvode, who claimed to have worked in a bank previously as a sales person and Peepal who was a second-hand car dealer, have been paying the rent of the lodge regularly and ate food largely by ordering from the online delivery apps. “During the raid, we found there were Indian currency 500 and 100 denomination notes scanned in the laptop. They had ink and bond paper which they used to take printouts. They also had Rs 77,000 original cash and fake notes of Rs 81,000. They roamed in car and lived in a lodge. They had a luxury lifestyle with no jobs which indicates that they had been printing large amount of money. We would be investigating further on how much they have printed till now,” a police officer from NIU said.
The police said that Peepal had a fake identity card of defense ministry as well in which he gave himself a designation named ‘Lieutenant Advocate’. “He probably used it to skip paying tolls. We need to verify what he did with that id card,” the officer added. Peepal’s mother stayed in Panvel while Sarvode’s mother stayed in Kharghar. Sarvode and her mother did not go along with each other and hence she started staying in lodge and to give her company, Peepal too joined her.
The accused were presented before the court on Saturday and have been remanded to police custody till September 25.
