Spanish police have arrested two individuals in Madrid and Barcelona on Friday, in a joint investigation with Moroccan police services into the illicit trafficking of antique coins from Morocco to Spain.
The suspects, a Madrid auction house manager and her accomplice, an Italian national, allegedly forged documents to misappropriate the old coins and are now also facing the charge of money laundering.
The investigation began in April 2023 when the Moroccan authorities notified the Spanish ones that they caught a batch of old Moroccan coins in the luggage of an Italian citizen, residing in Spain, while he was trying to leave Morocco for Barcelona, Spanish outlet La Razon reported.
Moroccan policemen seized 113 silver dirham coins and four gold coins and returned another 37 to the Italian citizen.
Morocco required that the individual be investigated to make sure that he had purchased the relics in Spain as he was claiming, using a false invoice from the Madrid auction house.
Spanish agents questioned the suspect and found inconsistencies in his story as he was claiming this time that he bought the Moroccan coins in Spain to sell them in Morocco and bring back the remaining coins into Spain.
After several checks, it was confirmed that none of the coins had a permit to leave Spain, which seemed to indicate later that the origin of old items was never Spain.
Both the manager of the Madrid auction house and her Italian accomplice are now in police custory.