Algerian Authorities Bust Counterfeit Money Ring at Moroccan Border, Seize Billions in Fake Dinars

In a press release, the Algerian Ministry of National Defense (MDN) reported that the services of the National Gendarmerie and the Border Guards dismantled, on May 24, 2021, in the border area of Oued Bounaïm, commune of Bab El Assa, district of Maghnia, wilaya of Tlemcen, a criminal network composed of six individuals. During their arrest, the alleged criminals had in their possession large sums of money - bills of 1,000 and 2,000 Algerian dinars amounting to four billion and 108.5 million cents, of which a part in counterfeit bills estimated at three billion and 93 million cents, specifies the same source.

According to the MDN, the alleged counterfeiters tried to introduce these counterfeit bills in order to circulate them in Algeria with "the complicity of the Moroccan criminal networks". "These movements attempt to undermine the security and stability of Algeria, and to sow confusion and discord among the sons of the same people, as well as to commit acts of sabotage and to exhaust the resources of the national economy, in particular by flooding the national market with counterfeit bills," comments the same source.