The National Police, together with the Mossos d'Esquadra and Europol, have arrested twelve people after raiding the largest counterfeit 500-euro note laboratory in Europe, located in Spain, including the main forger and the distributors of the fake money, in an operation carried out in Alicante, Barcelona, Malaga, and Valencia.
The investigation began last year, when security forces detected the circulation of high-quality counterfeit 500-euro notes throughout the country and opened an investigation to find the source.
They soon identified the main suspect, who had already been arrested in 2009 for a similar crime, and in fact, the new counterfeit notes are very similar to the ones from 2009.
Meanwhile, the Mossos found a bag near Barcelona with more than four million euros of fake notes, and tests showed that they all had the same origin. The Scientific Police analyzed them, and identified five more people, very close to the leader of the gang, including the forger of the notes, who is an expert in graphic art.
According to the official press release, they had all met in prison in Spain, where they were serving sentences for various crimes, including forgery. Whilst in jail they formed a friendship that continued after they had all been released.
They set up a new graphic laboratory in a warehouse in the province of Valencia, where they printed banknotes worth eight million euros over a 3-month period, which they then used for drug trafficking.
During the pandemic, and given the impossibility of buying the materials from China to print more notes, production stopped and they moved to a smaller warehouse in Alicante, next to the ring leader’s home.
Police say that he "felt safe" and was looking for international financing toexpand the 'business'. He secured finance in France, but the security forces then decided to take down the network. The twelve arrests were carried out simultaneously in Valencia, Alicante, Barcelona and Malaga, where six homes and two industrial buildings were registered in addition to a caravan in Teruel.
Police calculate that this criminal group produced more than eight million euros in counterfeit 500-euro bills in Spain. The detainees went to court charged with the crimes of counterfeiting currency and belonging to a criminal group, and have been all sent to prison.
