A 42-year-old man was sentenced to 27 and a half months' imprisonment at Hong Kong District Court Tuesday upon conviction of six counts of passing counterfeit banknotes.

The court heard that the man was identified to be a distributor and utterer of counterfeit 100-HK-dollar (12.89 US dollars) banknotes by the police, according to a Police report released on Tuesday.

Investigations revealed that he was responsible for passing the counterfeit 100-HK-dollar banknotes on six occasions between Dec. 13, 2003 and May 14, 2004. These included one at a fast food shop and the other five after taking short taxi journeys.

In a joint operation among the enforcement agencies in Hong Kong, Macao, Guangdong, Zhuhai and Shenzhen, the man was arrested in Shenzhen for possession of 147 counterfeit 100-HK-dollar banknotes on June 27, 2004.

After serving his sentence in the Chinese mainland, he was handed over to the Hong Kong Police.

He was subsequently arrested and charged with six counts of passing counterfeit banknotes for the offenses he had committed in Hong Kong.

The defendant pleaded guilty to the charges and the sentence was meted out on Tuesday.

(Xinhua News Agency September 14, 2005)