More counterfeit bank notes seized in Madrid by National Police

CHRISTMAS doesn’t just bring presents but also seems to encourage the distribution of fake euro notes with another gang busted by the National Police.

This time, the €20 and €50 notes were printed in Naples by a well-known but elusive Italian criminal group and the notes were purchased on a regular basis by an individual who travelled to Naples to arrange the deal and then sent the fake notes back to Madrid via couriers.

Thanks to cooperation between the National Police, Bank of Spain, Europol and other police units, the officers were able to identify a woman who sold the fakes from her house in the Madrid district of Villaverde.

Regular visitors who were known to her arrived at her property and purchased the counterfeit notes which she obtained from the man who used to travel to Naples.

Following the man’s latest trip to Italy, officers waited until his parcel of false notes arrived and then arrested him, seizing €52,000 in fake notes and a further €17,000 in genuine notes.

After his arrest the woman who used to purchase fakes from him, continued to operate as she found another supplier and when officers entered her property, she attempted to throw her stack of fake notes out of a window but without success and large numbers of counterfeit notes were found following her arrest.

At the same time, buyers of those notes had been identified as they went to the house over a period of weeks and in all, a total of 20 people were arrested in this operation.