Who Painted My Money White Page 5

  It was unimaginable that the three men had travelled the sea in that little motorboat. Maybe a bigger vessel, a ship even, had dropped them near the coast from where they used the boat to come ashore. Imtiaz would not be getting any answers from his guests, since he would not be asking questions.

  In the meantime, the three men were relaxed enough to sleep. They congratulated each other on having made it this far. A merchant ship had sailed from Karachi, Pakistan, laden with routine tradable goods, and they had sailed aboard as members of the crew. They had then accosted an Indian motorboat, seized it forcefully, taken captive the six Indian crew members on board, knifed them and threw their bodies overboard. They had kept a couple of the Indian crew alive for navigation to the coast, after which, they too were killed as mercilessly. “Jang me sab jayaz hai (It’s all fair in war),” one of them said. The ship, in the meanwhile, had proceeded on course its journey.

  They also thanked their stars to not have accosted any Indian coast guard patrol vessel. India’s long coastline stretches along more than 7,000 kilometres and the agencies - the Coast Guard and the Indian Navy - have a difficult time securing it 24X7. Besides, a kind of complacency had set in; there had been no attacks in the recent past via the waters that surrounded India on three sides. The security apparatus in the Indian maritime domain was lax. Coastal surveillance equipment like radars and real time information gathering as well as management and dissemination of maritime data were nearly non-existent.

  Elsewhere, some within the security agencies were crying hoarse on the need for greater coordination between the various maritime agencies, the strengthening of the Indian Navy with real time tracking of fishing boats along the coasts. The elite National Security Guards had to be better trained to tackle wartime invasions by terror groups and patrol boats needed to be equipped with state-of-art technologies to detect and confront intrusions. But for now, three mysterious men had alighted on the shores of a coastal village in Kerala, undetected.

  It was seven in the morning. Imtiaz knocked the door and announced tea. One of the men popped his head out, took the tray, murmured his thanks, and shut the door. They were not to be seen until lunch. This time, the three trooped out and sat at the dinner table. Half hour later, they retreated once more to their room. The room had an attached bathroom and thus the family was spared the occasion of having to share its other washroom with the guests.

  The next morning, one of the men asked Imtiaz to step inside the room and asked him if he had told anyone about their arrival. The man looked pleased when the answer was ‘no.’ “Keep it that way,” he said. It sounded like an order. Imtiaz was then given the first of his errands. He was handed over the address of a shop about 30 kilometres away and told to meet the owner, a Mr. Niaz. Imtiaz was to collect a sealed bag and return home. He was advised to be back only after sundown. Needless to add, he was not to open the bag or talk to Niaz, except to confirm his identity.

  It was small and light, and it was sealed. As darkness set in, he was back home and straightaway handed over the bag to the man who had sent him to fetch it. Over the next three days, the same process was repeated with different addresses. The bags that he brought back differed in size and shape. But invariably, they were lightweight. Finally, it appeared that the men had got all that they had wanted.

  The men were pleased with what they saw. Imtiaz had delivered parts of sophisticated arms to them. The firearms had been sent in a CKD (completely knocked down) condition and were re-assembled by the three men in the privacy of ‘their’ room. The weapons had arrived in the remote coastal belt of Kerala through a circuitous route across the country, dodging agencies along the way. Among the goods were suicide vests as well.

  A suicide vest is an improvised device fitted with explosives and a detonator, worn by suicide bombers. Once detonated, the shrapnel that flies out of the vest consists of bearings, nails, screws, bolts etc., and they end up causing large-scale casualties in their vicinity. The earlier versions of suicide vests were used in inter-country wars. In the second Sino-Japanese conflict, for instance, a Chinese soldier detonated the vest he was wearing, killing nearly two dozen Japanese nationals at a warehouse. Chinese troops, fitted with these suicide vests, would throw themselves at approaching Japanese tanks, blowing up the tank and themselves in the process. But even before the Chinese had adopted these means, the Japanese had engaged in similar suicidal attacks. Loaded with anti-tank mines and other explosive devices, they would blow themselves up before enemy forces.

  One of the ‘benefits’ of suicide vest attacks is that the culprit gets completely obliterated in the process, making it nearly impossible for probe agencies to decisively determine identity. Suicide bombing had, therefore, become the preferred method of destruction with several terrorist groups. The mercenaries thought nothing of losing their lives in the greater glory of their religion, plus the prospect of paradise lay temptingly ahead, where, they were told, they would be treated as glorious martyrs.

  The three men at Imtiaz’s house felt the same. They now had all the ingredients they needed - guns, ammunition, explosives and suicide vests. All they had to do now was to wait. The signal for action would come soon. It was time for the evening namaz, and they piously spread out their prayer mats.

  CHAPTER 8.

  The Intricate Network

  One critical link in the intricate fake currency network flourishing in India was Santhana Gopal or Saga as he was often called. Of late, he had reason to be content. He was tasked with disseminating Rs.10,000 crores among a section of Indian Muslims. Saga had identified a bunch of individuals who could be targeted; mostly people in desperate need for monetary assistance and the kind who would not ask too many questions.

  The town was exploding with real estate development and his hardware outlet, the National Hardware Agency, was doing well. New structures came up, driven by the rise in demand for residential complexes. It felt like a great deal of liquid money was floating around, which was fueling the realty sector. People were buying flats by way of investment rather than to live in them.

  But the store had become more of a side venture. His main business now was the distribution of counterfeit currency. He was introduced to it a few months ago by one of his builder clients. Initially, Saga was reluctant. He wasn’t willing to get into something as shady as this. Money was important but not enough to risk his life for. It needed some persuasion to convince him. The builder explained to him (rather methodically) about the near zero chance of his being caught if something were to go wrong.

  The counterfeit currency business was too deeply layered and complex even for the builder to understand. Saga would just be one seemingly insignificant cog in a large wheel. This assurance plus the prospect of big easy money eventually pulled him in. Among the first sub-agents that Saga recruited was Ramesh Badri. Ramesh was to distribute fake currency to their targets – poor Indian Muslims. Saga went on to give a crash course to Ramesh about the business and sought to pass on the confidence he had got from the builder. Suitably charged and convinced, Ramesh went a step further and found creative methods for the money distribution. He managed to build a sizeable client base in just a few months.

  Ramesh belonged to the Nair community of Kerala, known for its unwavering patriotism. Their fierce loyalty for their land has been legend. The British had, in the beginning of the 19th century, restricted the entry of Nairs into the British Indian Army. Following independence, the Nair Brigade of the Travancore State Force was merged with the Indian Army and became part of the 9th Battalion, Madras Regiment, making it the oldest battalion in the army.

  The Nairs had become rulers of minor kingdoms by the time the Portuguese arrived in Kerala (known as the Malabar region then), towards the end of the 15th century. Over time, the ‘Nair’ name became synonymous with brave, armed warriors. But the rise was followed by a steady decline over time, under the eventual suppression of the British rule. The Nairs had the mortification of being disbanded and disarme
d.

  Ramesh was aware of his community’s glorious past, a history that had been passed on with pride from one generation to the next. A constant reminder of this conflicted with his now new line of work. But the rewards were too big to refuse. However, a lingering remorse surfaced sporadically.

  Whether or not he understood the fake currency business as well as Saga had taught him, he was certain of at least one fact. He seemed to have involved himself in something very wrong. A classmate of Saga’s had approached Ramesh with an offer that was too good to refuse. He would be given a large sum of money and he had to invest a part of it in a greenfield project for clean energy. The investment would fetch him decent returns over the years. He could use the rest of the money as he pleased with no questions asked, whatsoever. He was thus sucked in.

  While Ramesh leisurely sipped his Scotch and contemplated his life, Maida couldn’t stop gloating over the amount of money he was actually sitting on. He had many people like Ramesh working for him and the likes of him, with the real benefits going to a select minority community as well, in the process, putting national security on threat. The so-called greenfield project (one of several such) was fake too. It was a façade for laundering money. Ramesh promised himself that he would quit the mysterious business as soon as he had accumulated enough money for a more comfortable life. A promise he himself was not sure of keeping, especially after a couple more drinks.

  In the meantime, the trust to which Imtiaz had given Rs.2 crores at the behest of the chartered accountant, was doing rather well. Its account, held at the same cooperative bank where it had all started for him, now had in excess of Rs.200 crores. In recent months, several individuals who had gained a small fortune in near similar fashion had been persuaded to deposit a part of their overnight earnings. But that was not all. The account was also flush with counterfeit currency that was difficult to distinguish from the real. Only a close-knit group within the bank, including the ever-obliging manager, was privy to this.

  Although the cooperative banks came under the larger purview of the Reserve Bank of India, they had a huge leeway to function independently. Besides, many of them were managed from behind the curtains by influential political heavyweights who had decisive stakes in these banks. This made it ever so easy for interventions by outside agencies to be regularly sabotaged by political entities.

  The media was filled with reports on Kerala emerging as a potential nerve-centre in south India for Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN). It posed a stiff challenge to Kaliachak and Malda in West Bengal, which were the focal points for FICN in eastern India. Intelligence agencies had been grappling for long to nab the masterminds behind these ventures but despite busting a few rackets and arresting people, little had been achieved. The task was now tougher since fake currency producers were getting increasingly better with copying various security features of genuine currency. Earlier, fake notes were printed via low quality photocopying machines; now high-end offset printing machines, of the LEPE kind, were used.

  While the old time transitional cross-border smuggling routes were still operative, new ones were constantly explored. These were relatively risk-free since intelligence agencies had not yet fully identified and surveyed them. Thus, if Punjab or Jammu & Kashmir, as well as Nepal remained the usual routes to bring in FICN, those in the south had gained popularity in recent times. Here, fake currency came in containers via the sea route and was managed on the shore by people already tipped off for the job. They had to get the consignments away with the authorities looking the other way.

  South Indian coastline states such as Kerala had several isolated spots along the coast, where fake currency wrapped in towels and such would be simply dumped on the shore and picked up by local handlers. This was similar to the modus operandi in the northern states bordering Pakistan and Bangladesh. Bundles of FICN wrapped in scraps of cloth and paper bags would be tossed across the porous borders into India, from where they are carted away to their destinations.

  Of the many cross-border agencies involved in pumping fake currency into India, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is especially active. It has acquired expertise in seamlessly merging terrorism in India with the FICN racket. Around the same time as Imtiaz was running errands for his three guests, two gangsters from Nepal were arrested by the Madhya Pradesh police. They had been nabbed along with fake Indian currency of Rs.500 denomination and had revealed that a high-ranking citizen of Nepal had been in touch with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim (who lived in Pakistan) as well as the ISI to conduct massive fake currency operations. Among other things, this money was used to fund terrorism and the drug trade. The role of the ISI and terrorist groups in the entire network did not surprise Indian intelligence authorities, who were aware that billions of dollars’ worth counterfeit Indian currency printed in Pakistani presses was in circulation in India. Pakistan may have denied the allegation repeatedly, but it has not been able to explain why it buys currency paper and special inks far in excess of its own currency requirements.

  Pakistan imports the special paper and ink from various countries including the UK, Sweden and Switzerland. After their own currency is printed, the excess is utilised, under the ISI’s direct supervision, to produce fake Indian currency. The counterfeit money is then transported to its destinations abroad by various means – air, sea and mules. Insiders in probe agencies knew that the penetration of this fake currency is so deep in India that it was found in the chests of a nationalised bank in Uttar Pradesh.

  The modus operandi is simple. There are main agents who buy the fake notes of higher denominations at 50% of the face value from the ISI-Dawood Ibrahim network and then distribute them in small lots through their subsidiary agents. These agents then lure passengers travelling to India from Nepal, Bangladesh or the Gulf countries to carry the currency. In India, these passengers are contacted by an India-based agent who collects the goods.

  A year after the Freedom Party returned to power in its second term, intelligence estimates claimed that the ISI had set aside an annual budget of Rs.1800 crores to organise terror activities in India, through the use of counterfeit currency. Three years down the line, the Financial Intelligence Unit, falling under the Ministry of Finance, had reported a 400% increase in counterfeit currency transaction reports. In just one year, more than 12,500 such reports had been generated with a face value of Rs.100 million.

  Saga and Ramesh felt important about their roles as foot soldiers in the game. But they were mere pawns in the counterfeit currency network. The real players were elsewhere, far removed from the ground.

  CHAPTER 9.

  The Real Estate Boom that Never Was

  Danish Ahmed had a modest start in his realty businesses but emerged as an influential member of the society with his growing wealth and association with various religious radical elements. The ever-increasing need for money to sustain his stature came from unaccounted earnings. The black money component — undeclared money available for use in many ways, including laundering — had for decades formed a key element of the real estate sector. Sellers like Danish insisted on taking cash as part of their payment for properties since it did not reflect in the account books and therefore could evade paying tax. Earlier, people would hoard their black money, but with the boom in real estate, they had begun to invest that amount in instant income-producing assets such as properties ready for immediate possession. The working of this mechanism was simple. If a buyer wishes to acquire a flat worth Rs.2 crores, the seller would take just Rs.75 lakhs in white and the rest in cash (as black.) The buyer can then rent this property that could fetch him nearly 20%, that is Rs.15 lakhs per annum, by way of rental income.

  It was now time for Danish to look beyond business. He had accumulated enough, and it continued to be a steady flow. He began to nurture the dream of entering politics. His connections with radical groups and his own money could be put to good use. A foothold in politics could be a good backup in case something was to go wrong la
ter. He knew that the real estate boom, which he had milked to the full, was actually a bubble that could burst any day. After all, the boom had not been born of market forces but by hundreds of devious manipulators like himself.

  Meanwhile, he reveled in his fortune. He had properties in Malappuram and Kozhikode in Kerala. He had received reports from his staff that 95% of his residential units in the two towns had been booked, which meant that his firm, National Real Estates, had netted close to Rs.10 crores as advance money. Over the next four years, more cash would flow in as the owners who had booked the flats would pay their installments. For now, he had something else in mind. He would approach his bank, raise a loan of Rs.50 crores against his Rs.10 crores, ostensibly to develop another property. Work on the property for which the advance sum had been received, would be funded from the installments.

  It was not the most ethical way to conduct business. In the first place, the money through installments would not be enough to get the construction underway at the fast pace that his firm had promised his clients, who had paid in advance. Besides, it was wrong to divert money from one project to another. But these considerations did not bother Danish. Many others were getting away with it, leaving customers who had paid lakhs of rupees for their dream homes in the lurch. Only a few unfortunate ones were caught. His Medina Infra Projects was not among them. Yet. But high-profile Vaishali Homes, with residential properties across the National Capital Region (NCR) that borders Delhi, had not been so lucky.