Illegal money printing in garage Thurgau man wanted to counterfeit five million dollars
Pensioner Rolf A. (72) wanted to print 50-dollar notes worth five million dollars on behalf of a 22-year-old younger Swiss man. Today, Monday, the counterfeiter from Thurgau is on trial.
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- The main trial against Rolf A., who is regarded as one of the biggest Swiss counterfeiters, and his accomplice begins today.
- Together with a garage owner, the 72-year-old wanted to put 50-dollar notes worth five million dollars into circulation.
- The two suspects were discovered during a routine inspection of the garage owner's CBD facility.
Today, counterfeiter Rolf A. is on trial. The 72-year-old was working on behalf of a 22-year-old younger Swiss man from Spreitenbach AG. The latter also has to stand his ground in court today.
The crime scene was the garage of Rolf A.'s accomplice in Urdorf ZH. According to the "Aargauer Zeitung " newspaper, he is said to have invested 130,000 francs in setting up the illegal money printing business and provided the pensioner with a room in a shared flat in Spreitenbach.
The two suspects had planned to print 50-dollar notes worth five million and put them into circulation. During the search, the police are said to have seized printed sheets in various stages of production worth eight million dollars.
The case is described as "extraordinary", as the "Aargauer Zeitung" writes. Rolf A. was a master in the field of counterfeiting and was compared to the most famous Swiss counterfeiter, Hans Jörg Mühlematter.
The case at the time involved 13.3 million francs in the form of thousand-dollar notes. A documentary was published about the Bernese man, who is said to have died of bowel cancer in summer 2015 at the age of 81, as reported by the "Aargauer Zeitung" newspaper.
Rolf A. had already produced counterfeit money in Thailand, where he lived for a while. He had to serve a prison sentence.
Caught during a routine check
The coup was uncovered in the canton of Zurich in November 2022, when the police carried out a routine check at the CBD facility that the garage owner also operated. On site, the officers not only found around 300 kilograms of drug hemp, but also caught the master counterfeiter at work with an assistant.
As the "Aargauer Zeitung" reported, there were indications that Rolf A. had confessed. This was due to the detailed descriptions of the procedure in the indictment. He was also given an early sentence, which usually only happens with confessed offenders.
Rolf A. was a specialist because he had managed to forge notes that would have passed for originals in the eyes of laymen. For example, he had managed to imitate the security thread and the watermark depicting US President Ulysses S. Grant in a deceptively genuine manner.
The suspects were caught before they could complete the production of the counterfeit money. The accomplices have already been convicted by the Office of the Attorney General.