A first-ever report on dubious deposits made in the wake of the 2016 notes ban has revealed that banks in India received an all-time high amount of fake currency and also detected an over 480 per cent jump in suspicious transactions post demonetisation.
The banks, including those in the private, public and cooperative sectors, and other financial institutions collectively generated 400 per cent more suspicious transaction reports (STRs) at over 4.73 lakh such dossiers during 2016-17, the report pointed out.
The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), that analyses suspicious financial transactions pertaining to money laundering and terror financing as part of the Union Finance Ministry establishment, reported that counterfeit currency transactions in the banking and other economic channels witnessed an increase by over 3.22 lakh instances during 2016-17 as compared to the last year, media reports said.
This had a link to demonetization of two high value currencies of Rs 1000 and Rs 500 which was declared by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the night of November 8, 2016, PTI quoted the report as saying.
“A noteworthy growth was also seen in the number of counterfeit currency reports (CCRs) which increased from more than 4.10 lakh in 2015-16 to over 7.33 lakh in 2016-17, which may also be attributed to the demonetization exercise,” it said.
The latest figure is the highest ever since the CCRs were first generated in the year 2008-09. CCRs are “transaction based reports” and they are generated only when a fake Indian currency note (FICN) is detected.
