Kathmandu Metropolitan Police Range (KMPR) on Wednesday arrested six people, including well-known film producer Madhav Wagle, with fake currency valued more than Rs 26 million in Kathmandu.

The police arrested Madhav Wagle, Bikesh Napit, Sujit Tamang, Mahendra Bogati, Prakash Subedi and Sajan Tamang from different places of the Kathmandu valley. Police officers recovered 1000 denomination notes worth Rs 25.20 million from the office of Princess Movies, Wagle’s film production company.

The production company has co-produced popular Nepali movie like Loot, Loot-2, Chhadke and Resham Fillili. The fake currency racket was busted on Tuesday when Mahendra Bogati used them to pay his bill at a café in Gongbu Bus Park.

KMPR Spokesperson Superintendent of Police Ram Dutta Joshi said, “The café owner informed the police after he noticed defects in the notes.”

The police had recovered fake currency worth Rs 160,000 from Bogati. Following leads given by Bogati, the police hunted the other racketeers.

“We seized more fake money and arrested other accomplices involved in this racket after Bogati gave details. Our team had seized nearly Rs. 0.75 million from Sajan Tamang and Sujit Tamang,” said Joshi.

Police also arrested Nawjyoti Printing Press operator Prakash Subedi and Jay Bholebaba Printing Press operator Bikesh Napit and seized four plates used for printing fake notes.

Those involved in the fake notes said they printed the bills to use in a film. According to Dipendra K. Khanal, director of film Changa Chet being produce by Princess Movies, the fake currency was for this film.

“We needed huge amount of fake cash for the film. We assigned our art director to manage the fake money. The art director had taken the money from the producer (Wagle) to get the required fake money,” said Khanal, blaming the art director for the whole incident. 

 “After the money was used, it was supposed to be at the producer’s houses. The art director took out eight bundles of cash and used for paying bills at a restaurant because of his mistake, the police arrested the producer. All fake currencies had ‘for film purpose’ written over them,” he said.

Spokesperson SP Joshi said only few notes had prints of ‘for film purpose’ mentioned on them.

The Metropolitan Police has asked five-day custody from the Kathmandu District Court for investigation. If proven guilty, all would be charged under the counterfeit currency law.