Mumbai: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has secured its first conviction of 2025 with the Special NIA Court, Mumbai, sentencing four accused to five years of imprisonment in a case relating to possession of fake Indian currency notes. A total of five accused were arrested in the case, which was initially registered by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in Nagpur.
The investigation began on January 16, 2020, when the DRI seized fake notes with a face value of Rs 13,67,500 and arrested four individuals. The NIA subsequently took over the probe, re-registering the case on February 10, 2020, and launched a detailed investigation. Following the probe, the NIA filed a chargesheet on April 7, 2020, against the four arrested individuals: Lalu Khan, Mahesh Bagwan, Randheer Singh Thakur, Ritesh Raghuwanshi.
A fifth accused, Sohrab Hosen, a resident of Malda, West Bengal, was declared wanted at the time.
The NIA apprehended Sohrab Hosen on June 29, 2020, and subsequently filed a supplementary chargesheet on September 24, 2020. The investigation revealed that Hosen was involved in smuggling fake currency and Phensedyl cough syrup across the Indo-Bangladesh border. However, Hosen died in custody at Lucknow Prison.
The four remaining accused pleaded guilty before the Special NIA Court in Mumbai. The court sentenced each of them to five years of imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 3,000.
