Chennai: There is heavy congestion at Chennai port, where raids by officials of the Department of Revenue Intelligence and customs personnel are on for the third day on Monday as part of a nation-wide search operations to detect smuggling of fake and counterfeit current of Rs 500 and Rs 2000 denomination.

According to sources, large quantities of fake currency is feared to have landed in the country and hence raids are being carried out at many entry points – Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, Kanpur and Tughlakabad, where imported container depots are located.

The goods that have landed at these container depots are being searched by personnel from the customs and DRI and as this is a slow process, the goods are piled up at the container depots. All the cargo at the Chennai port is being screened and any movement of containers requires a clearance from the DRI.

There is however, no scanning of goods being exported.

The officials indicate that the fake currency could have arrived from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Containers emanating from these countries would be thoroughly checked and only then they would be allowed to enter India.

The DRI and customs officials suspect that there could be one or two containers that carry the fake currency.

It may be recalled that in the recent past, there have been seizures of fake Rs 2000 currency notes in some places soon after remonetization. More important, many of the security features contained in the new currency printed by the Reserve Bank of India were found incorporated in the fake currency.

One of the aims of the demonetization and re-monetization was to check the counterfeit currency that was allegedly being pumped into the country by Pakistan with an intention to weaken the country’s economy.

Prime minister Narendra Modi had declared that India will brook no nonsense when dealing with fake currencies or corruption which also the demonetization attacked.