Agents of the National Police, in a joint operation with the Mossos d'Esquadra and Europol, have dismantled a printing press dedicated to the counterfeiting and distribution of counterfeit 20 and 10 euro bills in the province of Tarragona.
As reported by the Ministry of the Interior, the investigation began in January 2023 when the circulation of a large number of counterfeit 10 euro, 20 euro and, to a lesser extent, 50 euro banknotes was detected.
After the arrest on those dates of two young people who were carrying 100 counterfeit 20 euro bills, these were analyzed by the National Analysis Center (CNA) of the Bank of Spain, who reported on a new counterfeit with similar characteristics to those seized in several illegal printing presses. dismantled in the years 2021 and 2022 in the province of Tarragona.
One of those arrested identified the person who distributed the counterfeit bills, turning out to be a young man from the town of Salou who was previously investigated for manufacturing counterfeit currency. From that moment on, police actions were initiated against those investigated and it was found that some of them had made purchases of material from Chinese companies that could have been used for counterfeiting currency.
As the investigation progressed, the agents confirmed the appearance of 10-euro bills that, according to the Bank of Spain, had great similarities with the 20-euro bill that was the initial object of this investigation, so everything indicated that they could be making them the same people.
The counterfeit bills were made in homes and private premises run by those investigated, and were made by hand and in very small batches. This made the investigation and location of the production point extremely difficult.
At the end of September, the agents carried out the operation, which resulted in the arrest of six people and the carrying out of seven searches in homes and premises in Salou (6) and Cambrils (1). In one of them, the banknote laboratory was dismantled, which was made up of printers, computers, and a printed banknote with a face value of 50 euros that they used as a template. Likewise, different narcotic substances were seized, including 1,500 methamphetamine pills, 120 grams of cocaine, five cylinders of nitrous oxide, one kilo of marijuana and 520 grams of hashish.
With this latest operation, the most active and most affected counterfeit currency laboratory in recent years is dismantled, although the operation remains open in order to make possible new arrests of people related to these events.
The three police operations carried out in these three years against this criminal group have allowed the arrest of 22 people and the dismantling of three counterfeit banknote laboratories, as well as the removal from the legal circuit of counterfeit banknotes with a face value of more than 36,000 euros.
