Ennore police busts forgery network of 10 years

CHENNAI: A forgery network allegedly operating for over ten years was busted by the Ennore police, with six people being arrested, on Monday (October 12).

The group made counterfeit government seals, academic records and currency notes.

The racket surfaced last week when officers were probing a case near a shop that rents out drill machines in Wimco Nagar.

An officer noticed a student inside the shop with a transfer certificate, while a large number of rubber stamps were kept on a table nearby.

Suspicious about the document, the police sent it for verification and found it fabricated. Acting on the lead, a police team raided a premises at Ambedkar Nagar in the same locality and recovered more than 100 seals, allegedly impersonating those of government departments and institutions.

The search also yielded fake medical certificates, college certificates, transfer certificates, documents showing bogus medical qualifications, Emirates passports, suspected counterfeit Rs 500 currency, Re 1 coins and machinery allegedly used for printing and manufacturing the forged items.

The arrested accused are Karunakaran (59), Stephen alias Jayakumar (34), brothers Johnson (45) and Victor (42), Karunanidhi (60), and Sathyamurthy (60), all hailing from the Eraneeswarar Temple area in Ennore.

Karunakaran allegedly acted as the coordinator, Stephen was involved in making fake currency, Johnson and Victor prepared forged educational certificates, while Karunanidhi and Sathyamurthy handled customers.

They charged at least Rs 2,000 per document and got clients through word-of-mouth references, police said.

Preliminary investigation revealed that the network was earlier headed by Jacob, a retired headmaster of a government school, who died last year. Some of the accused were also booked in forgery cases a few years ago.