In addition to drug and psychotropic drug trafficking, stamp fraud has recently experienced a resurgence. Stamps worth €98,000 on a flight from Morocco were seized at Valencia airport, as reported by the Iberian press. Agents of the Spanish Civil Guard managed to foil a fraud attempt.
They confiscated 42,766 counterfeit French, British, and Spanish stamps at Valencia airport, according to the Spanish Armed Institute. The stamps are valued at 98,000 euros.
They were hidden in the suitcase of a 39-year-old passenger, of Spanish nationality and Nigerian origin, who was coming from a flight from Casablanca. Spanish customs officers noticed signs of nervousness in the woman in the baggage claim area of Valencia airport.
Suspicions were confirmed when customs and tax officers observed the woman tearing off the identification tag from her suitcase, probably in an attempt to escape the customs control applied to passengers arriving from third countries. The Spanish Civil Guard then asked the woman to identify herself and discovered that she had several criminal records for fraudulent crimes.
The airport scanner later revealed that the suitcase contained several packages of uniforms. Upon opening the suitcase, the agents found a huge quantity of stamps, up to 42,766 which, according to the Civil Guard, appear to be counterfeit.
The stamps were sent to the crime lab to determine their authenticity. Once this analysis is completed, the Civil Guard could launch an investigation for an alleged crime of falsification. Among the stamps seized, 16,000 are Spanish.
