Βanknotes stolen from the Central Bank of Libya in Benghazi in 2017 have turned up in Larissa, central Greece, when a man from Volos tried to exchange 200-euros banknotes of total worth €40,000 at a branch of the Bank of Greece in Larissa.
According to local newspaper eleftheria.gr, the man wanted to exchange the worn banknotes against new ones.
The worn banknotes he presented immediately raised suspicion, the bank personnel informed authorities and the banknotes were seized. The 60-year-old man has now have to tell authorities where and how he came to the possession of these banknotes.
Their serial numbers of the banknotes confirmed that they origin was the Bank of Libya.
According to information “Eleftheria” newspaper, the banknotes bore a serial number belonging to banknotes with a total value of 159 million euros, which were reported to have been stolen from the Benghazi Branch of the Central Bank of Libya during the Libyan civil war.
The head of the Control and Money Handling Service of the Bank of Greece handed over to Larissa Security Directorate the sum of 40,000 euros in visibly worn 200-euro banknotes at noon on Friday, May 10, 2024, just a few hours after the man from Volos had brought it to the bank.
Greek Police confiscated the money and filed a case against the man for the offense of accepting and disposing proceeds of crime. Police continues investigation.
The Central Bank of Libya was seized by a Libyan National Army brigade in late 2017 and it was reported they had emptied the safes. About €68 million of the €159 million had already been ruined by a sewer overflow, daily kathimerini reported adding that despite the damage the banknotes found their to other countries, including Greece.
The Banknotes Directorate of the European Central Bank had informed the national central banks of the Eurosystem in April 2019 about the circulation risk of the banknotes. Since 2019, more than eight cases have concerned the Greek authorities. These notes have also appeared in Belgium, France and Estonia. Some of the notes reportedly ended up in Europe via Turkey.
According to the Estonians, in addition to Turkish criminal networks, the Russian mafia is also involved in trafficking the stolen banknotes. The Central Bank of Estonia handled more than 50 related cases involving 1,705 banknotes stolen from Libya in recent years.
