€40,000 worth of banknotes from looted Libyan bank surface in central Greece

Banknotes stolen from the Central Bank of Libya in Benghazi in 2017 turned up in Larissa (central Greece) when a man from Volos tried to exchange €200 notes for a total of €40,000 at a Bank of Greece branch.

According to the publication Ekathimerini, the man wanted to exchange worn-out banknotes for new ones. The banknotes presented to him immediately aroused suspicion, bank employees reported this to the authorities, and they were seized. Now the 60-year-old man will have to tell the authorities where and how he became the owner of these banknotes.

Serial numbers of the banknotes confirmed that their source was the Bank of Libya. According to the newspaper, the banknotes had a serial number belonging to banknotes worth a total of 159 million euros, which were reported to have been stolen from the Benghazi branch of the Central Bank of Libya during the Libyan civil war.

The head of the Control and Money Service of the Bank of Greece handed over the sum of 40,000 euros in visibly worn 200 euro banknotes to the Larissa Security Directorate at noon on Friday, May 10, 2024, just a few hours after a man from Volos brought them to the bank.

Greek police confiscated the money and opened a case against the man for the crime of receiving and disposing of the proceeds of crime. The police are continuing their investigation.

The Central Bank of Libya was seized by a Libyan National Army brigade in late 2017 and they were reported to have emptied the safes. About 68 million euros out of 159 million have already been destroyed due to sewer overflows. It became known that, despite the damage, the banknotes ended up in other countries, including Greece.

The Banknote Directorate of the European Central Bank informed the national central banks of the Eurosystem in April 2019 about the risk of circulation of banknotes. Since 2019, more than eight cases have involved Greece. These banknotes also appeared in Belgium, France and Estonia. Some reportedly reached Europe via Turkey.

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