IT Correspondent
Mumbai, August 21:
Altab Hussein Ansari (38), an aide of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim (basically from Mumbai, now holed up in Pakstan), involved in smuggling fake Indian currency to India across Pakistan border, was recently arrested by the Nepal Police.
Altab was arrested from Nijgadh in Bara district by Nepal Police, while handling a gold smuggling case. During his interrogation, he admitted to have been involved in smuggling fake Indian currency since long. The Nepal police had arrested an Indian Nilesh Sakhiya on charges of nefarious activities some time back. His accomplice Sanjay Patel is still at large. Both Sakhiya and Patel, from Gujarat, had illegally migrated to Nepal from Birgunj border a few years back and have been operating a racket of gold smuggling, in the Himalayan state.
Altab had colluded with one Yunus Ansari, working for the criminal syndicate run by Dawood. Subsequently Yunus and others were arrested with fake Indian currency notes worth INR 76.8 million from Tribhuvan International Airport in May 2019. They included 3 Pakistani and 3 Nepali. Yunus has been languishing in jail since then.
Altab was arrested in 2009, in connection with smuggling of fake Indian currency with a face value of INR 5.4395 million, which was seized from a rented room in Satdobato, Lalitpur. He was sentenced to three years in jail, by the Lalitpur district court. He was again arrested on 15 June 2015 as a fugitive. However, after serving his term and the consequent release, he was back to the world of crime, running his racket, in 2018.
Altab colluded with Yunus to run the smuggling racket earlier, but was on his own after the latter’s multiple arrests. “International racket of fake Indian currency had come to trust Altab more due to under-performance of Ansari and his associates. Altab was also operating a criminal racket under the guise of a ‘social worker’ and donated to temples, mosques and schools in Bara and other places in the Tarai region, to win the confidence of locals.
