Taking Counterfeiting to the Next Level & Beyond

türkçe links to original Turkish article

(Milliyet Newspaper, 19 March 2017)


                      An international mint.

Based on a tip, the Istanbul Provincial Gendarmerie mounted
operations in Başakşehir and Zeytinburnu districts and shattered a
gang that was producing all types of counterfeit money and valuable
documents.  The items produced were not just from Turkey, but from
Canada, Greece, Italy, Germany and Arab countries, as well.

Among the material confiscated were fake U.S. dollars, phony visa
documents indistinguishable from real ones, product labels, exhaust
stamps, printing machines and special tools only used in mints.  The
items seized from the gang: 8,000 pages of counterfeitting paper with
secret elements and watermarks visible under UV light and set to the
criteria for U.S. 100 dollar bills amounting to $4,800,000; 100 Turkish
Lira (TL) bills amounting to 2,250,000 TL and 200 TL bills amounting
to 7,560,000 TL, complete with UV light security elements and a secret
picture of Atatürk - 6,300 pages.


          The end result looks a lot better.

Additionally, there were 25,200 visa documents from various Arab
countries; 26,400 labels for TAPDK (Turkey's cigarettes and alcohol
control authority) products; 1,300 blank ID and residency documents
for Norway (!); 6 printing forms for Italian ID cards; 330 blank
Canadian ID cards; 2,800 adhesive stickers with security holograms
for French passports; 10,000 fake ID's for various countries; holograms
for fake ID's, passports and visas, and 42,000 fake exhaust stamp
holograms (and much, much more.)