AN academically gifted student from Sichuan, China, completed his prison sentence only to be incarcerated once more for possessing counterfeit money, Sin Chew Daily reported.
Originally on track to enter a prestigious university, Guo Feng (not his real name) secretly purchased two firearms online and showed them off to his classmates during his final year at high school.
Chinese state media CCTV reported that he was convicted of illegal possession of firearms and was sentenced to six months in prison, ending any chance of entering a good university.
After being released, Guo was consumed by an obsessive desire to become rich.
He was inspired by a movie on making counterfeit currency and decided to partner with a factory making joss paper money.
However, disputes over profit sharing led to Guo and the factory ending the partnership.
He then began recruiting associates to join his operation in 2023. In March 2024, police finally nabbed Guo during a deal in Nanchong city in northeast Sichuan.
They seized around 280,000 yuan (RM168,359) in Chinese yuan and US dollars.
His mobile phone revealed that Guo split the features and patterns of banknotes into tiny sections and assigned them individually to a host of digital artists he anonymously recruited online.
Investigators found during testing that most of the counterfeit notes were able to pass standard counterfeit detection tools.
Guo was convicted of counterfeiting and selling counterfeit banknotes.
Being the mastermind, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison and had all of his personal assets confiscated.
His associates received sentences ranging from three to 12 years.
