Five men have been sentenced to 40, 30 and 9 months in prison with hard labour for possessing equipment used in forging money and being found with and using forged currency.
The men were caught at Mdeka Trading Centre in Blantyre where they bought assorted items, before being nabbed together with two fabricators who were residing at Chilimba Township where the counterfeit money was recovered in K5,000 notes totalling K915,000.
Chisenjere First Grade Magistrate Kitty Nkhono sentenced the master-minder identified as Mike Steven, a regular offender, to 40 months imprisonment for unlawful possession of forged currency notes and 20 months for unlawful possession of implements for forgery; the sentences to run concurrently.
The court also sentenced Joel Kazembe, 30, Charles Yasin, 24 and Imran Daudi 23 to 30 months jail term for using and unlawful possession of forged currency before ordering Nickson Potani to pay a fine of K200,000 for printing the forged currency or in default, serve a 9 months jail term.
The court has also ordered that all the implements used in the printing of the forged currency be forfeited to the Malawi Government.
All the five convicts are residents of Chilimba in Blantyre City.
