A Bank Note Press Officer in Dewas district was apprehended by the Central Industrial Security Force ( CISF) on Friday for allegedly trying to steal freshly-minted currency notes by concealing them in his shoes.
The case was handed over to the police which has seized crisp currency notes amounting to over `90.59 lakh so far following raids at the premises of the officer Manohar Verma, said Assistant Inspector General Hemendra Singh, also a spokesperson of theCISF.
Verma was working as the deputy control officer in the Note Verification Section of the high-security press, he added. Singh said that in the morning, fresh `200 currency notes worth `40,000 were recovered from Verma's shoes.
"The security staff on duty had noticed Verma hiding something discreetly in an empty wooden box kept in the corridor. After this, he kept a watch on him through CCTV cameras and other means and later on 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 `26.09 lakh in cash from his drawer, while `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," said Singh .