Authorities in Nepal have arrested a Pakistani national carrying more than a quarter of a million dollars in fake Indian currency, officials said on Tuesday.
"The fake currency totalled 10.2 million Indian rupees (252,000 dollars) in 500 and 1,000 denominations," Dhak Bahadur Karki, a senior security official at the airport told AFP, adding the bills were hidden in soap bar wrappers.
Nepal shares a long, porous southern border with India, and Indian analysts frequently allege that Pakistani intelligence services use Nepal as a route to bring in fake Indian bills.
"This is one of the biggest seizures of counterfeit currency that I know of," Kathmandu investigative police officer Upendra Kanta Aryal told AFP. "We believe that this is an organised network and we are investigating it," Aryal said.
Abdul Wahib, 40, who told police he was a businessman, was stopped on Monday at Kathmandu's Tribhuvan Airport upon arrival from Karachi.
If convicted of counterfeiting, Wahib could be sentenced to five years in prison and fined the same amount as the total of the fake currency he attempted to smuggle into Nepal.