Gang tries to net €6m in broken Euro coins
A Chinese gang has been arrested in Germany for exchanging broken Euro coins for banknotes in a scam reportedly to be worth almost £5.5 million (around €6m Euros).
The scam that targeted the German central Bundesbank was based on them exchanging Euro coins that were ‘broken’ (or garbled as is the industry term) for the coins face value.
The gang handed in consignments of fake broken €1 and €2 coins along with some genuine broken coins to pass the visual tests that the bank does. The Bundesbank is the only central European bank that will exchange Euro coins that are broken (or garbled).
The gang used specialist safebags that the bank specifies. However it is believed that the gang simply purchased fake safebags online. Each bag holds €1000 in coins. Unbelievably 30 tonnes of the coins were thought to have been imported by a number of flight attendants who brought them in to Germany as part of their luggage allowance.
The gang used sophisticated equipment to weld some of the fake broken coins together to give them a genuine look. Police commented that fake garbled Euro coins exchange on this scale has never been seen before because of the huge effort involved. However it’s thought that the bank would not spot or suspect this particular way of passing off fakes and by all account it was only a fluke that the gang were caught.
Although there have been a wide number of criminals trying various ways to produce realistic fake Euro coins this is the first time that a gang has tried this method. The Euro currency was originally thought to be one of the hardest currencies in the world to reproduce as a counterfeit due to it’s bimetallic construction and design. Police advise that if you do come across what you expect to be a fake Euro coin you hand it in to a local police station.
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