Lots of flowers
Police confiscate hundreds of millions of dollars in counterfeit money in Schleswig-Holstein
A 42-year-old businessman is suspected of having exported counterfeit money to the USA (symbolic image)
© AFP
A 42-year-old is said to have hoarded an incredible amount of counterfeit money. Now investigators from Schleswig-Holstein have discovered him.
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 forgeries were discovered in Jübek in the Schleswig-Flensburg district and in Hamburg during raids on residential and company addresses. A 42-year-old businessman is suspected of having exported counterfeit money to the USA.
75 boxes full of counterfeit money
According to their own information, during the searches the investigators came across four pallets with a total of 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”.
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. Production and distribution therefore constituted a criminal offense.
Note: This post will be continually updated.