A special NIA court in Bihar on Monday sentenced a man to 10-year rigorous imprisonment in the East Champaran fake currency case, an agency official said.
Munna Singh (46), who was found guilty by the special court on September 5, was the sixth accused to be convicted in the case.
He was also slapped with a fine of Rs 5,000, a spokesperson of the federal agency said.
The official said he was sentenced to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs 5,000 under various sections of the Indian Penal Code as well as five years’ rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs 5,000 under various sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Both the sentences will run concurrently.
The case was originally registered on September 19, 2015 and taken over by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on December 23 the same year.
A total of 10 accused were involved in the case relating to the seizure of high quality fake Indian currency notes (FICNs) of a face value of Rs 5.94 lakh from one Afroz Ansari.
The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) had nabbed him near Ramgarhwa, Motihari, East Champaran, while he was carrying the fake currency consignment to Raxaul, near the Indo-Nepal border, for further delivery in Nepal.
The case was subsequently taken over by the NIA, the spokesperson said.
Since then, the NIA has charge-sheeted eight accused, of whom five were convicted earlier.
Afroz Ansari, Sunny Kumar alias “Sunny Shaw” alias “Sujit Kumar” alias “Kabir Khan”, Ashraful Alam alias “Ishraful Alam”, and Alomgir Seikh alias “Raju” were sentenced to life imprisonment, along with a fine of Rs 30,000, by the special court in October 2018.
Another accused, Raisuddin, was sentenced to five years’ rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs 5,000 last month.
