The town that prints money: Europe’s counterfeit capital

THE stench of rotting garbage and diesel fumes hangs heavily over the main street of Giugliano in Campania, a sprawling town just north of Naples.

In a dusty piazza, unemployed youths pass the time with noisy hands of cards, dragging on contraband Marlboros hawked openly on nearby street corners, while old men in flat caps doze on park benches. Just outside the town, prostitutes loiter by a slip road leading to the Naples motorway.

On the surface, there is not much to differentiate Giugliano from any of the other decaying communities in southern Italy, struggling to cope with a deep and prolonged recession. Yet behind the peeling, graffiti-spattered buildings, there is another Giugliano, inhabited by a tight-knit network of talented forgers.