Panaji: The Panaji police seized counterfeit Indian currency notes worth over Rs 2.96 lakh and arrested five tourists from a hotel in Calangute on Monday.
The tourists are from Chandigarh and had come down to Goa a week back, said police. The accused persons had reportedly used the fake currency notes in various business establishments in Panaji and Porvorim, police said. The arrested tourists have been identified as Rajdeep, Gagandeep, Harjeet, Rahul and Anurag.
According to information received, staff at one of the business establishments in the city where the fake currency notes were used by the tourists, later realised that the banknotes given by the tourists were fake following which they contacted the Panaji police.
The police subsequently, based on technical surveillance, tracked down the tourists to a hotel in Calangute and a search led to the recovery of the different denominations of Rs 100, Rs 200 and Rs 2,000 Indian currency notes. The total amount of the seized fake currency notes is around Rs 2,96,400.
A case has been registered under sections 489 A, 489B and 489C of the Indian penal code and investigation is in progress. The case was detected by Panaji police team headed by police inspector Laxi Amonkar (additional charge of Panaji police station), under the supervision of SP Utkrisht Prasoon.
