Authorities in Nepal have arrested a Pakistani national who was carrying more than $250,000 in fake Indian currency, officials said on Tuesday. “The fake currency totalled Indian Rs 10.2 million ($252,000) in Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations,” Dhak Bahadur Karki, a senior security official at the airport told AFP, adding the bills were hidden in soap bar wrappers.Nepal shares a long, porous southern border with India, and Indian analysts frequently allege that Pakistani intelligence services use Nepal as a route to bring in fake Indian bills. “This is one of the biggest seizures of counterfeit currency that I know of,” Kathmandu investigative police officer Upendra Kanta Aryal told AFP. “We believe that this is an organised network and we are investigating it,” he added.
Abdul Wahib, 40, who told police he was a businessman, was stopped on Monday at KathmanduÂ’s Tribhuvan Airport upon arrival from Karachi. If convicted of counterfeiting, Wahib could be sentenced to five years in prison and fined the same amount as the total of the fake currency he attempted to smuggle into Nepal.