Counterfeit 500 euro notes almost undetectable to the naked eye… A network of counterfeiters, presented as the largest in Europe for ten years, has been dismantled in Spain, the police announced on Thursday.
This network, active on the east coast of Spain, in particular in Alicante and Barcelona, is suspected of having produced “more than eight million euros” of counterfeit money in 500 euro notes, said the Spanish police in a communicated. The operation, carried out jointly with the Catalan regional police (the Mossos d’Esquadra) and Europol, led to the arrest of twelve people, including “the printer” and “the main distributors” of the network, adds the press release.
4.3 million fake banknotes discovered by a neighbor
The investigation began in the summer of 2021, when the circulation of “high quality” 500 euro banknotes was detected with similarities to banknotes manufactured by a network of counterfeiters dismantled nearly ten years earlier in Valencia. According to Sergi Sanchez, head of the counterfeit money unit at the Mossos d’Esquadra, it accelerated when a bag containing 4.3 million counterfeit notes was discovered in August by a neighbor outside the home of one of the suspects, near Barcelona. Some of these banknotes did not have “the holographic disc” allowing them to be authenticated, he explained during a press conference in Madrid, where bundles of counterfeit banknotes and machines seized during the attack were exhibited. ‘investigation.
According to the police, the counterfeiters would have lacked the material to put the finishing touches to part of the production, due to the closure of the borders with China – where they used to get their supplies – due to the coronavirus pandemic. Covid-19. The finished banknotes were of “excellent quality”, and almost undetectable to the naked eye by non-experts, said during the press briefing Jorge Ruiz, investigator of the technical section of the Research Brigade of the Bank of Spain. . According to the police, the alleged leader of the network had already been implicated and imprisoned in 2009 in another case of counterfeit notes. He would have known his accomplices during his stay in a prison near Valence.
