Bulgarian police stop euro forging ring

SOFIA, Bulgaria, July 3 (UPI) -- Bulgarian police said they have broken a major European ring that was printing counterfeit euro banknotes in the central Bulgarian town of Plovdiv.

Bulgarian police, in a coordinated action with Spanish police, arrested 17 people in the Plovdiv area, 90 miles southeast of the capital of Sofia, and seized about $750,000 in forged notes, the Sofia news agency SNA reported Friday.

Police officers uncovered three facilities in the Plovdiv area where the suspects were forging high-quality banknotes in denominations of 100, 200 and 500 euros.

The counterfeit notes were first discovered in Spain in 2007 and since have been found in several European Union countries.

Bulgarian police raided 24 houses and confiscated personal computer data and various forging equipment, SNA said.