Mumbai, Nov 20 (TOI): As people rush to exchange the banned Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, cops found racketeers are using the opportunity to pass off counterfeit notes. While the Carnac Bandar branch of Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank received 93 counterfeit notes with face value of Rs 1,000 each, two men tried to cheat a youth with bundles of blank papers, covered with Rs 500 notes, in Kalyan.

Police said Satyam Mishra,19, was standing in a queue at SBI's Kolsewadi branch to deposit old bank notes of his father, when two history-sheeters, Kismat Barkat Ali and Waghmare, approached him asking if he could help them get Rs1lakh in old notes exchanged as, they said, they did not have bank accounts. Mishra agreed, but then suspected something amiss and opened their bag, only to find just two Rs 500 notes and plain papers underneath them.

As he raised an alarm, the others in the queque nabbed Ali while Waghmare escaped. " Ali said he was trying to steal Mishra's money by giving him fake notes," police said.

Meanwhile, Pydhonie police have registered a case against aPunjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank customer for de positing fake notes in the bank's Carnac Bundur branch on Friday ."Around1.30 pm, an account holder, Shivaji Pawar, 35, deposited Rs 93,000 in Rs 1,000 notes.After he left, bank officials realised the notes were fake," said a police officer, adding they have summoned Pawar.

Meanwhile, Navi Mumbai cops arrested three hawkers with fake notes of a total face value of Rs 2.5 lakh. Murugan Chetty (64), Anil Dharod (52) and Barkat Ali Shaikh (31), who sell clothes on a pavement at Dadar, tried to use some fake notes at a petrol pump outside CBD station on November11, but staff called the cops. The trio claimed to have bought the notes from a trader in Kolkata.