SHANGHAI: A court here yesterday sentenced two men and a woman from Henan province to between nine months and 11 years behind bars for trading and possessing large amounts of fake banknotes.

Wang Zidong, 46, fell to his knees and started crying as the Shanghai No 2 Intermediate People's Court sentenced him to 11 years in jail and fined him 200,000 yuan ($29,300) for selling fake notes worth more than 1 million yuan at face value after a hearing that lasted four hours.

Song Xiuhong, 45, was sentenced to a term of 10 and a half years with a fine of 200,000 yuan for buying the counterfeit notes.