Police captured 11 in counterfeit euro banknotes investigation

Eleven people have been detained in organised roundups over Europe as section of an inquiry into the darknet’s second-largest artificial currency generator, Europol announced on Monday.

More than 26,000 forged banknotes, expected to be worth €1.3 million had been sold by the felonious group, the agency added in a declaration.

The cross-border investigation was triggered in July after Portuguese police demolished a print shop and arrested five people.
Of the 36 raids carried out last week, 27 were done in Germany with the other nine spread out across Austria, France, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg and Spain.

Officials obtained false euro banknotes, drugs weapons, doping substances, illegally procured medicines as well as forged
records and virtual money.

A private documents print shop was also captured in Germany, Europol said.

As per Europol, the unoriginal banknotes were distributed through the
unauthorised platform Wall Street Market.

In May, German prosecutors assisted by Europol took down the Wall Street Market.

With over 1.1 million consumers’ account, 5,400 sellers and 63,000 sales, it had been the world’s second-largest dark web market, enabling the trade in drugs (including cocaine, heroin, cannabis and amphetamines), stolen data, fake documents and malicious software.