Two men were arrested at the Landsbanki branch in Borgartún yesterday, RÚV reports, suspected of trying to get actual cash from counterfeit coins.
While police did not want to comment on the amount of money they were attempting to pass off, witnesses say the two men entered the bank with a very large bag of coins. They took these coins to a coin counting machine, which is typically used to convert large quantities of spare change into paper money.
For reasons that were not disclosed, employees attempted to stop the men from using the machine, and the men resisted these attempts. Police were then called to the scene, and the suspects were led out of the building in handcuffs.
Counterfeiting is a highly uncommon crime in Iceland, but not entirely unheard of. In 2016, it came to light that there were some counterfeit 10,000 ISK bills in circulation. This led to at least one arrest, but it is unknown how many of the false bills went into circulation before the operation was stopped.
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