Kolkata, Nov 14 (IANS): In a major joint operation by the Special Task Force (STF) of West Bengal Police have busted two major cross-border rackets of counterfeit currencies and narcotics.

According to the Malda district police superintendent Pradip Kumar Yadav, in the first case, two persons were arrested in joint operations by STF sleuths and cops of Kaliachak Police Station, along with fake currencies of Rs 500-denomination valued at Rs 1,00,000.

The two persons arrested in this connection are Biplab Mondal (25) and Asim Mondal (51) both residents of Kalichak.

“Recently, the district police have seized several counterfeit currencies in different parts of the district. We doubt these two arrested persons have a connection with those since there are synergies in the serial numbers of the fake currencies recovered from them as well as those recovered earlier,” Yadav said on Thursday.

Claiming that the printing quality of the counterfeit currencies seized from them was of extremely high standards and it seemed that they were printed elsewhere before being brought to Malda.

In a separate joint operation by the STF sleuths and the cops of Gazole Police station, Yadav added, two persons have been arrested with huge quantities of raw materials for the manufacture of brown sugar.

The two persons arrested in this connection have been identified as Mahesh Sarkar (31) and Ratan Debnath (53) and both are residents of the north-eastern state of Tripura.

“The estimated value of the raw materials seized is around Rs 50 lakhs. The two have admitted that their assignment was to take those items to Nadia district,” he said.

Meanwhile, district police sources said that the arrested persons in both the counterfeit currency and narcotics rackets are parts of major border rackets.

Malda district with its border with neighbouring Bangladesh has come to the news a number of times for local people from there being involved in cross-border crimes, especially counterfeit currency rackets.