Overview

• Three men aged 22 to 26 were arrested in Alicante after an attempt to pay €850 for a champagne bottle with counterfeit €50 notes.
• Officers seized 18 €50 notes from the first detainee, and the venue manager who spotted the fraud turned over another note that matched serials.
• BIBE analysis confirmed the bills were sophisticated fakes with identical numbering, and a second man who tried to hide the wallet was also detained.
• Investigators linked a third suspect who allegedly bought a vehicle using €1,000 in counterfeit €50 notes, and all three were brought before the Alicante duty court.
• In a separate case reported the next day, police arrested a young man in Almería accused of passing counterfeit €100 notes for branded clothing in Murcia and Málaga, with a judge ordering provisional detention as investigators probe the source and examine seized phones.