Printing shop for forged documents dismantled in Barcelona

Officers found almost 2 000 counterfeit passports and ID cards of 56 nationalities

Officers from the Spanish National Police (Polícia Nacional) and the Barcelona City Police Force (Guàrdia Urbana de Barcelona), supported by Europol, dismantled an organised crime group involved in property crime, facilitation of illegal immigration and document fraud.

The criminal network was involved in the counterfeiting and distribution of forged documents. It was also trafficking genuine documents, stolen in Spain. These were used by people with similar physical characteristics from Middle Eastern countries to facilitate their illegal entry into the EU.

During the action day in July, a raid in the house of the main suspect in Barcelona led to the dismantling of a printing shop for fake documents. He produced the fake documents with high-quality security features such as UV holograms. The investigation uncovered that he had ordered 1 000 similar features for the manufacturing of French ID documents and 10 000 for Spanish ID documents.

Europol facilitated the exchange of information and provided analytical support. On the action day, Europol deployed a virtual command post to enable the real-time exchange of information and cross-checking of operational information against Europol’s databases to provide leads to investigators in the field. Europol also deployed an expert to Barcelona to provide technical support with data extraction and analysis of digital evidence.

The investigation was developed as part of EMPACT’s Joint Operational Team Doc Fraud to combat document fraud in the EU, targeting organised crime groups involved in the production of fakes and the trafficking of forged or illegally obtained documents.