Brothers used Christmas break to print £1.2m worth of fake banknotes

Two brothers who used their UK printing firm’s Christmas and New Year break to churn out £1.2m worth of fake banknotes have both been jailed for seven years.

Apparently respectable businessmen Amrit and Prem Karra acted as “masterminds and architects” of the highly-sophisticated counterfeiting operation, Birmingham Crown Court heard.

Sentencing the brothers and two other men who also took part in the scam, Judge Richard Bond said such offences undermined the integrity of the UK’s financial system.

The Karra brothers and their brothers-in-law, Rajiv Kumar and Yash Mahey, were all convicted of conspiracy to produce counterfeit notes following a five-week trial which ended in December.

The trial heard Amrit Karra, of Broadway North, Walsall; Prem Karra, of Brookhouse Road, Walsall; Kumar, of Clarkes Lane, West Bromwich; and Mahey, of Cranbrook Road, Handsworth, Birmingham, even worked through the night to print fake £10 notes with a face value of at least £1.27m.

Amrit Karra, aged 45, Prem Karra, 43, Kumar, 40, and Mahey, 44, used specialist paper, inks and foil to run off the near-perfect forgeries at a print-works in Hockley, Birmingham.

Judge Bond told the men, who are all married with children: “People who commit offences of this type must realise that those who counterfeit currency must expect long sentences of imprisonment.

“In this case the amount of money produced and disseminated into general circulation was enormous.

“Production of counterfeit notes undermines the whole economy of the country... essentially it undermines the whole integrity of the currency system.

“It is so serious that only lengthy custodial sentences can be justified.”

Jailing both Mahey and Kumar for four-and-a-half years, and barring the Karra brothers from acting as company directors, Judge Bond said the offences were motivated by greed.

He told the defendants: “All four of you knew what would happen to the notes.

“You knew that if you were caught it would affect your wives and your children and other members of your immediate family.

“Knowing, as you did, the consequences of being caught, you ignored your families. The risks taken in this case were high and you must personally take the blame.”