Ching! Germans bag stewardess in coin fraud
An airline stewardess struggling to lift her bag at a German airport led to the discovery of a six million euro coin fraud.
The customs officer who stopped the stewardess in early 2010 found thousands of one and two euro coins in her bag, Bild newspaper reported.
An investigation uncovered a forgery ring stretching to China and potentially implicating employees of German airline Lufthansa, the paper said.
Reuters reported that the Frankfurt prosecutors’ office carried out dawn raids on offices and residences and arrested six people, four of whom are from China.
It suspects them of having smuggled coins that had been taken out of circulation, or bits of those coins, into Germany from China, where they had been sent as scrap metal.
The suspects then put the coins back together and exchanged them for a total of six million euros at the Bundesbank from 2007 to 2010, the prosecutors said.
Airline cabin crew do not have a weight limit on their baggage, prosecutors highlighted in a statement.
There was no suspicion of any wrongdoing on the part of Bundesbank employees, the prosecutors’ office added.
Ian Jarrett
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