German woman tries to buy a car with money she printed herself

A German woman landed in hot water last week when a car dealership noticed that her money looked a bit … well ... homemade, actually. 

German woman’s swindle backfires 

It was the perfect plan to zoom away in a luxury car without handing over a single cent, but instead she ended up taking a ride in a police car. A woman in the southwestern German city of Kaiserslautern walked into a car dealership and, bold as brass, handed over 15.000 euros of counterfeit cash to try to buy a car. 

This was hardly the work of a criminal mastermind, however. The staff quickly noticed that there was something extremely off about her bank notes and alerted the police, who carried out a search of her home in the nearby city of Pirmasens. There they found an ordinary inkjet printer, loaded with ordinary printer paper, and an additional 13.000 euros of fake notes. Ingenious. 

Counterfeiting money a criminal offence in Germany

The woman was promptly arrested and taken into custody. The state prosecutor has yet to issue criminal charges against her. Under federal law, attempts to imitate money with the intention of putting it on the market is punishable by at least one year in prison.

Thumb: Polizei Pirmasens