Police busted a fake Indian currency racket near here on Saturday with the arrest of six accused and seized counterfeit notes of Rs 2,000 amounting to over Rs 2 lakh.

The police seized 105 counterfeit notes of highest denomination of Rs 2,000, which was released this month following the demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes.

Of the Rs 2,22,310 fake currency seized from the gang, Rs 2000 notes were worth Rs 2,10,000. The remaining fake currency was in small denominations of Rs 100, Rs 50, Rs 20 and Rs 10.

The police also seized two colour Xerox machines amd Rs 50,000 in cash among other incriminating material.

The arrests were made under Ibrahimpatnam police station limits, some 35 km from Hyderabad, in Rachakonda police commissionerate.

Rachakonda Commissioner of Police Mahesh Bhagwat told reporters that the gang started making fake currency notes of lesser denominations and after successfully circulating them in the market, starting making Xerox copies of Rs 2,000 notes.

The police chief said the accused were waiting for an opportunity to circulate fake Rs 2,000 notes.

Jamalapur Sainath, 28, a butcher by profession, is kingpin in the case and conspired with G. Anjaiah, C. Satyanarayana, K. Sridhar Goud and A. Vijay Kumar to make the fake currency notes.

On credible information, police raided the house of S. Ramesh — one of the accused — at Ibrahimpatnam, arrested the six and seized the fake currency.

Two other accused — Kalyan and Srikanth — were absconding.

Bhagwat said people can easily detect the fake Rs 2,000 note by following some simple steps like checking crackling sound of paper, blind person mark, fluorescent threads and number panel which glow in ultraviolet light and latent view of denomination written with semi-dried oils.