A gang of forgers set up a virtual bank to smuggle fake bills

The police services of the province of Ain Temouchent (western Algeria) busted a network of criminals operating in the province of Tlemcen (western Algeria) specialized in money forgery.

• The gang comprises 6 individuals whose activities stretched as far as France, Italy and Spain where several of their acolytes were based. Their main task consisted in supplying them with hard currency transferred to Algeria through different means.
• A report issued by the Algerian central bank revealed that the bills were “perfectly” forged to an extent that the anomaly went unnoticed by the different banks’ detectors. The 1000 Algerian Dinars bills contained misspellings easily recognisable. The forged bills amounted to 45 thousand Algerian Dinars.
• Reliable sources revealed to “Echourok” that the inquiry lasted nearly two weeks when the police force squad of the locality of Hamam Bouhadjar was tipped that a group of individuals were smuggling forged 1000 AD type bills.
• Most of the criminals were jobless except one who was a Mathematic teacher, but they succeeded to garner huge fortunes out their illegal business. They acquired luxurious houses and cars.
• The investigators discovered leading- edge equipment used by the counterfeiter to issue their forged bills including computers and printers. These sources revealed that the criminals were exchanging hard currencies using the local one but the slid the forged bills among the genuine ones in their transactions.
• One of the culprits used his kiosk located in the city center as a lure to practice his illegal business; police force elements seized 1.5 million Algerian Dinars and 25.000 Euros while searching the kiosk.
• A financial expert revealed to “Echourok” that this traffic has become widespread in Algeria because of the absence of authorized exchange offices in the country that could be controlled by the authorities, avoiding this large- scale trafficking.