Police arrest 12 in counterfeit coin scam

PALERMO – Police have discovered a haul of counterfeit one and two euro coins totalling some 556 thousand euros, the Palermo prosecutor’s office announced Friday.

 The operation is believed to have imported the coins from a production facility in China. Police seized the stash made up of around 306 thousand coins in a shipping container, and made 12 arrests.

 The joint investigation between police in Palermo, Naples and Cosenza has tracked the criminal group for some time, leading to Friday’s arrests.

 Local carabinieri were joined by specialist anti-counterfeit officers from Rome. Together they seized the false coins, which are reportedly of very high quality, indistinguishable from the true thing to the untrained eye.

 It has not yet emerged how long the criminal group has been operating, and whether other large consignments of their counterfeit product may have already entered circulation.