Italian police bust European counterfeit ring -- one and two euro coins
Arizona Coin Collector
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/01/28/italy.fake.euros.scam/?iref=mpstoryview
Italian police bust European counterfeit ring
ROME, Italy (CNN) -- Italian police say they've
made 96 arrests after busting a European
counterfeiting and money laundering ring.
The counterfeiters -- mainly operating in
Belgium, Germany, Italy and Spain -- were
producing high-quality 20, 50 and 100 euro
notes, along with one and two euro coins,
according to Col. Leonardo Alestra, the
commander of the operation.
The operation, the result of a two-year
investigation, shut down four plants that
were producing millions of the bills and
coins, Alestra said. Most of the arrests
were made in southern Italy's Calabria
and Campania regions.
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Arizona Coin Collector
Bloomgerg had a better story than CNN
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FROM:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aoNa4bbDMdrQ&refer=europe
Italy Breaks Up International Counterfeit-Euro Ring (Update1)
By Steve Scherer
Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Italian police conducted an
early- morning dragnet across the country to round
up more than 100 people in what they described as
the largest bust of a euro counterfeiting ring ever.
About 700 of Italy's Carabinieri police together
with Rome's anti-counterfeiting squad carried out
96 arrests in nine regions of the country. A total
of 109 arrest warrants were issued. Four
laboratories for printing fake euro bills and
minting phony coins were discovered, and 1.2 million
euros ($1.6 million) was sequestered during the
investigation, police said.
"This is the biggest operation ever conducted
against euro counterfeiters," Colonel Carlo
Pieroni, who participated in this morning's
arrests, said in a telephone interview from
Reggio Calabria. "This was a cartel set up to
make and distribute fake money nationally and
internationally."
The bills were tracked out of Italy to Spain,
Germany and Lithuania, according to a statement.
The investigation began in 2005 as a probe into
mafia drug trafficking, Pieroni said, and the
main counterfeiting activities were carried
out in areas where the 'Ndrangheta and Camorra
mafias operate. The European Commission
Anti-Fraud Office, or Olaf, and the European
Central Bank took part in the investigation.
'Multifaceted'
"Today's operation again shows how multifaceted
the Calabrian mafia is," Giuseppe Pignatone,
the chief mafia prosecutor in Reggio Calabria,
told reporters today, according to Ansa news
agency. The 'Ndrangheta "takes advantage of
every opportunity for illegal income."
The operation was dubbed "Giotto" after the
Italian master painter who ushered in the
Renaissance. Some of the fake cash made it to
Latin America, Pieroni said, which is an
indication that some of the funny money may
have been distributed as part of drug
transactions.
Phony bills worth 20, 50 and 100 euros were
discovered, as were false 1- and 2-euro coins.
While the quality of the forgeries was
"average," according to Martin Mund, a
counterfeit expert at the ECB who aided in
the probe, the ring may have produced as much
as half of all the counterfeits withdrawn
from circulation in 2007 and 2008.
"Anyone familiar with the security features
of the banknotes could have realized that
they were false without the use of any
special equipment," Mund said in written
responses to questions by Bloomberg.
The ECB has no plans to change any of the
euro's security features, he said. "The
number of counterfeits in circulation is
still very limited," Mund said.
Today's operation follows a similar raid
yesterday by finance police near Naples
that netted 3.7 million euros worth of
fake Algerian dinars, a half-ton of
high-quality paper and a sophisticated
printing press.
To contact the reporter on this story: Steve
Scherer in Rome at sch...@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: January 28, 2009 09:04 EST
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