Four Indian-origin men have been jailed in the UK for up to seven years for counterfeiting currency with a face value of more than 1.3 million pounds.
Amrit Karra, 45, and his brother Prem Karra, 43, were each sentenced to seven years for using their printing business in Hockley, Birmingham to produce the forgeries.
Rajiv Kumar,40, and Yash Mahey, 46, were jailed for four years at Birmingham Crown Court yesterday for counterfeiting money between September 2011 and February 2012.
The court was told 1.27 million pound worth of fake 10 pound notes had been recovered by police.
According to a BBC report, all four were found guilty of conspiring to counterfeit a currency note with the intention they or another would pass or tender it as genuine.
Judge Richard Bond said the fact that some of the 10 pound notes were still in circulation showed how "sophisticated" the operation had been.
"If the notes were passed as part of ordinary day-to-day financial transactions, they would go unnoticed unless someone examined them," he said.
In sentencing, judge told the men: "You were all professional forgers with carefully prepared plates and machinery. The reason for your offending is quite simply greed. You were trying to make a large sum of money."
The judge banned the Karra brothers from holding a company directorship for eight years.
Prem ran Karra Design and Print on Summer Lane with his brother Amrit. The court heard that along with Rajiv and Mahey, they used computers and machinery to make "high-quality counterfeit notes".
The men worked throughout the night to "avoid detection", the court was told. The forgeries were found at businesses as far away as Kent and south Wales, during an investigation by the National Crime Agency.
It said the fakes, some of which had their own unique serial numbers, were still being discovered by banks and retailers.
The court was told the printing company was in financial trouble and the brothers had turned to counterfeiting to save it.
Police showed the jury 1.3 million pound in genuine 10 pound notes to give them an idea of the scale of the crime. The four men used machinery and computers to produce the fakes at Karra Design and Printing. The printing firm has now been closed down.
