Three million counterfeit euro bills seized in Bulgaria since 2001

Bulgarian police have seized more three million euros in counterfeit bills since 2001 and dismantled up some 30 criminal groups printing them, Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg said on Monday.

"Since the beginning of tbe government's term (in 2001), over three million counterfeit euro were confiscated in Bulgaria," Saxe-Coburg told an international conference on combatting the production and distribution of counterfeit euro.

Many counterfeit travellers' checks, credit cards and other documents were also confiscated and "over 30 organised criminal groups in this business were destroyed," he added.

Bulgaria was working with Europol, as well as with individual countries like France, Germany and Greece to combat the counterfeit trade, Bulgarian Minister of the Interior Georgy Petkanov told the meeting.

The interior minister of Germany's southern Bavaria province, Gunter Beckstein, said in the last year there was an increase in the number of counterfeit euro bills seized, and as well as in the quality of the counterfeit currency and the "professionalism" of the criminals producing it.

Beckstein said most of the suspects arrested in Bavaria for counterfeiting came from eastern Europe.

Europol secretary Jurgen Storbeck said he was concerned that counterfeiting was "damaging to the European economic system".