Millions of fake euros found submerged in Bulgarian reservoir

Bulgarian authorities have seized a record amount in counterfeit banknotes after they were recovered by police divers from a reservoir.

Plovdiv City Prosecutor Ivan Daskalov said that the haul of fake 500-euro bills, thought to be around 13 million euros, had been stashed in plastic bags underwater by a dam in southern Bulgaria.

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He said that the counterfeit money was discovered after police were alerted to their imminent entry into circulation.

“This is one of the largest amounts of counterfeit euros ever encountered,” he told reporters, after one of the counterfeiters had confessed to the plot and tipped authorities onto the location of the fake money.

Experts believe that the notes’ stay underwater made them convincingly look like used ones.

Now, investigators to establish the exact value of the haul after the notes are dried and counted.

Most of the bills came in sheets of six and a small amount lacked holograms and other anti-counterfeiting signs.

One of the three Bulgarians that have been arrested in the case owns a printing company and has previously been sentenced to six years for forging currency.

Daskalov also said that 14 stolen guns and 3.2 kilograms of marijuana have been found at the house of one suspect.

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The European Central Bank said earlier this year that it plans to withdraw the 500-euro bill from circulation because they were allegedly favoured by criminals for money laundering, as well as for financing of terrorist activities.

At the beginning of this century, Bulgaria was among the biggest producers of fake U.S. banknotes along with Colombia, Chile and North Korea.

The U.S. Secret Service estimated that between 2000 and 2002 more than four million counterfeit dollars were seized in Bulgaria.

After the Balkan country joined the European Union in 2007, Bulgarian fraudsters have turned to copying the euro.