NIA court gives 10 yrs of imprisonment in FICN case

Two persons were sentenced to 10 years in Jail by a special NIA court in Vijayawada in a Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) case.

Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) unit of Visakhapatnam had seized FICN of face value Rs.10,20,000 from the two accused persons- Mohammed Mahaboob Baig and Syed Imran- travelling in Howrah-Hyderabad East Coast Express at Visakhapatnam Railway Station, an NIA release said.

They were arrested later following the proceedings under Section 135 of the Customs Act, 1962. In April 2018, NIA registered a case and filed a charge-sheet in the Special Court here.

Both the accused, who hail from Karnataka, were convicted under Section 489B (using as genuine, forged or counterfeit currency-notes), 489C (possession of forged or counterfeit currency/bank-notes) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.

"NIA Special Court sentenced two accused persons to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment with fine of Rs 10,000 under Section 489B of IPC, 7 years' rigorous imprisonment with fine of Rs 10,000 under 489C of IPC and 3 years' rigorous imprisonment with fine of Rs 10,000 under 120B of IPC. These sentences will run concurrently as total imprisonment for ten years with fine of Rs 30,000 each," the release read.

The court further stated that the accused persons shall undergo "simple imprisonment" in default of payment of "fine amount".

During the investigation, NIA found that the above accused along with their associates had hatched a criminal conspiracy for procuring and circulating fake Indian currency notes in India.

"Investigation has also revealed that the above accused persons and their associates in Bengaluru and Malda were active in the trafficking of huge quantities of FICN since 2015 and accused had visited Malda on many occasions and received FICN from their associates based at there," the release read.

"Investigation revealed that FICN was procured from Bangladesh via Indo-Bangladesh International border and further circulated in Karnataka and other parts of the country," it said further.