GUANGZHOU - A court in South China's Guangdong province on Thursday sentenced a man to death for producing a huge amount of counterfeit banknotes.

Wu Shengyou organized a group that forged 195 million yuan ($30.6 million) in notes from September 2009 to April 2010, when they were caught by police in the provincial capital Guangzhou, said the first-instance verdict issued by the city's intermediate people's court.

Seven other members of the group on Thursday received penalties ranging from life imprisonment to a five-year jail term for forging or transporting notes.

These fake notes, all in denominations of 100 yuan, were produced in Hunan province and transported to Guangzhou to be sold there, said the verdict.

The group sold 128 million yuan of the notes at a price of 3 to 3.5 yuan for each fake 100-yuan note, and the rest were seized by police, it said.

Wu said he would file an appeal.