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European police tracks suspected darknet fake banknote buyers

Tuesday 17 December 2019 11:00 CET | News

European police have carried out house raids across Europe targeting buyers of fake banknotes.

Europol said that 36 homes, across Germany, Austria, France, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg and Spain, had been searched. A total of 11 arrests have been made, plus a further 33 suspects have been detained for questioning.

According to Europol, the banknotes were made by the darknet’s second-largest counterfeit currency producer, with more than 26,000 fake banknotes had been bought from and delivered by the gang, BBC cited the agency.

The estimated face value of the notes was about EUR 1.3 million. A print shop in Lower Saxony, Germany, said to have specialised in fake documents, has also been dismantled.

Nevertheless, the European Central Bank reported that counterfeiting Euro bank notes appeared to be on the decline. A total of 251,000 counterfeit banknotes were withdrawn from circulation in the first half of 2019 - about a third less than for the same period in 2017.
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Keywords: Europol, darknet, fake banknotes, central bank, fake documents, Europe, Tor, darknet
Categories: Fraud & Financial Crime
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Countries: Europe
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Fraud & Financial Crime






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