The Italian Police said on Monday, November 13, that it confiscated EUR 28 million in counterfeited, high-quality notes. The money were printed at three illegal print shops, one of which was located in Romania, Agerpres reported.

The Police confiscated 939,775 counterfeit notes of EUR 10, EUR 20 and EUR 50, and arrested 13 people in the case.

The alleged heads of the money counterfeiting network are two Naples inhabitants “with wide experience” in the field.

They are suspected of having set up the print shops and establishing contacts with Italians residing in Romania in order to have one of the shops located in the country. They first identified a building that the Police would not find suspicious and proceeded with setting up a temporary print shop, which printed money for 10 to 15 days.

“During this time frame they could print over EUR 15 million of counterfeit notes. Afterwards, they stopped the operations and transferred the shop to another building,” according to the Italian Police.

Italy holds a record on the printing of fake notes through the offset procedure. The notes are printed in the area surrounding Naples. In 2014, Newsweek ran a story identifying the city as Europe’s counterfeit capital.

editor@romania-insider.com