Bengaluru ragpicker finds bundles of US currency worth $3 million, turns out to be fake

A Bengaluru ragpicker, Salman Sheikh stumbled upon several bundles of US currency which was almost $3 million in a pile of garbage on 1^st of November in Bengaluru’s Hebbal. The cash was found along with a letter with the UN seal. “The economic and finance committee puts in place a special fund which was voted by members of the Security Council to assist the UN peacekeeping forces in South Sudan,” the note said.

Sheikh then took these notes to his boss, Bappa on 5^th November who flagged this incident to social activist Kalimullah. Kalimullah then took the matter to the police, who found that the notes were laced with chemicals and thought that the notes were related to the black dollar note scam in which scammers convince people to believe that they will double their money. An officer said that fraudsters provide these fake currency notes and ask the receivers to clean them with chemicals. “People accept them because the amount of money is huge but ultimately get deceived. We suspect Africans involved in this racket in Bengaluru.”

The Bengaluru Police later confirmed that the notes were fake after the Reserve Bank of India examined the notes and said that the notes were either ‘printed or photocopied’. A case has now been filed and the investigation has started into who these notes belonged to.

The New Indian Express also reported that the ragpicker was abducted by a group of people who demanded that he give them their money back. The ragpicker contacted Kalimullah and told him that the abductors had also searched his house for the money but when they didn’t find the money, Kaleemullah said, they blindfolded and abducted him to an unknown apartment. “After checking his phone, the accused freed Bappa near Manyata Tech Park around 9:30 AM on Wednesday,” Kalimullah was quoted as saying by TNIE.

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