Police found four pallets of counterfeit bills
Photo:
APA/AFP
DGerman investigators have confiscated masses of counterfeit dollar bills with a face value of $103 million in Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg. As the State Criminal Police Office in Kiel announced on Friday, the counterfeits were discovered in Jübek in the Schleswig-Flensburg district and in Hamburg during raids on three residential and company addresses. A 42-year-old businessman is suspected of having exported counterfeit money to the USA in the past.
According to investigators, during the searches the emergency services came across four pallets containing 75 boxes of counterfeit dollar bills, which presumably came from a “wholesaler from Turkey”. He is said to have used one of the suspect’s companies in Jübek as an “interim storage facility for onward transport to the USA”. Corresponding information came from US security authorities.
The counterfeit money was so-called movie money or prop copies – i.e. imitations that could be recognized as counterfeits upon closer inspection. However, the Bundesbank and the US authorities classify them as suitable for being confused with real money. The production and distribution therefore constituted a criminal offense, it was said.
According to the criminal investigation office, the accused is, among other things, the managing director of two export companies. According to a spokeswoman, he was not in custody due to a lack of grounds for detention. The Flensburg public prosecutor’s office is investigating the man on suspicion of counterfeiting money; his searches took place last week.
