Euro counterfeiting ring smashed by police

COLOMBIA’S secret police and Interpol have smashed what they said was Latin America’s first major counterfeiting ring to produce fake euro.

A raid on Sunday in downtown Bogota uncovered printing presses as well as fake euro with a nominal value of €54,260 and fake dollars with a nominal value of €83,937. Two suspects were arrested.

Pamphlets related to the country’s largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, also were found during the raid, said Jeremias Gonzalez, a detective with the international police agency.

He said it was not clear what link there may be between the counterfeiters and the FARC, which has been battling to topple successive governments for 40 years.

Colombia is the world’s most prolific counterfeiter of dollars, with fake dollars nominally valued at more than €120 million discovered in the past four years.

Officials say it is no surprise that the same makers of counterfeit dollars are starting to make fake euro, the world’s newest major currency.

Euro notes and coins began to circulate at the beginning of 2002.

Last July, secret police officials uncovered a small stash of fake euro produced in Bogota but said the fakes were unsophisticated, crude reproductions and probably not the work of professional counterfeiters.

Authorities said the fake euro discovered on Sunday were of high quality.