Forty-eight fake notes under the denomination of Rs 100 were recovered from him.
A Special Court in Kerala on Wednesday convicted and sentenced a 71-year-old man to five years' imprisonment for possessing fake currency notes and trying to distribute them nearly 18 years after he was arrested for the crime.
Kollam Additional and Sessions Judge-I P Mayadevi convicted Antony of the offences - possession of and distribution of the counterfeit notes, and fined him Rs 25,000. He was arrested in December 2004 from Kottiyam market in Kollam district of the State on the basis of information that he was trying to distribute fake currency notes there.
Forty-eight fake notes under the denomination of Rs 100 were recovered from him. Upon raiding his house, a photostat machine and other equipment used for making counterfeit currency were seized from there.
Thereafter, the investigation was taken over by the Crime Branch which filed its charge sheet in 2016. The delay in filing the charge sheet was due to the fact that the Crime Branch could not end its probe with the gathering of evidence only against the arrested culprit and had to ascertain whether there were any other sources of the fake currency and the same takes time.
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