Large document forgery ring busted in Germany and Greece

Police in Germany and Greece have arrested one suspect after carrying out 12 house searches as part of an investigation into large-scale document forgery.

Operation Kosmos - which was initiated by the German authorities and supported by Europol - aimed to bust a network involved in the smuggling of forged documents to facilitate the illegal border crossing of citizens across Europe.

The forged documents were mainly passports, ID cards, residence permits and driving licences. After exchanging information with Europol, the investigation led the officers to Greece, where they identified different suspects and a counterfeit print shop producing these fake documents.

The investigation reveals that the recipients were located in both EU and non-EU countries, such as Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Syria and Turkey.

Europol supported this case through the European Migrant Smuggling Centre at Europol (EMSC) by providing analytical and operational support and supporting the Greek authorities with a mobile office on-the-spot during the action day.

This is one of the first action days carried out with the German authorities since Germany took over the presidency of the Council of the European Union on 1 July.