It was an illustrious traveling company that was curving around Naples: an Armenian, a young Romanian and two Italians sat in a black Mercedes SL with an Erfurt license plate. Had everything gone smoothly on this 17th of February 2014, then probably now 124.550 Euro counterfeit money would be in circulation in Germany.

That this is not the case, is due to two Carabinieri the guard Naples-Arenaccia. The two noticed on this day at 21 clock the black luxury sedan with German license plate. This is clear from Italian investigative documents that are available to SPIEGEL and MDR. The two policemen stopped the car and checked the inmates. They found that the car had been checked a few hours earlier - and the Armenians noticed it with 5,265 euros cash.

So the carabinieri asked where the money was. The Armenian from Erfurt could not answer this question clearly, so that the police searched the car and the inmates - and found 124,550 euro counterfeit money. Apparently, the wrong euro had been paid with almost 5300 real euros. The destination of the counterfeit money, so the officials suspect, should be Erfurt.

The Armenians, the Romanians and the two Italians were detained in Naples. After a few days, however, they were allowed to leave and were later sentenced in absentia by a court in Naples. The Italian authorities informed the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), which is responsible for contacts with foreign authorities.

Erfurt counterfeit money

In turn, the BKA informed the Thuringian State Office for Criminal Investigation (LKA) in March 2014. There, the investigators were immediately alert. Because already since December 2013 ran against several Armenians from Erfurt a procedure on suspicion of spreading counterfeit money. However, the investigation did not progress properly. That changed when the BKA announcement came. The flowers found in Naples coincided with the counterfeit money found in Erfurt. In addition, the Armenians arrested in Naples belonged to the group of suspects in the Erfurt counterfeit case. The Thuringian authorities either lead the suspects as presumptive members of the Armenian mafia or at least credit them to their environment.

The LKA and the Organized Crime Prosecutor Gera pushed the case forward with this new information. Especially as many of the defendants were in large part also in the notorious Armenian mafia shootout in July 2014 in Erfurt. At that time, two men were seriously injured when two clans got into an argument in front of a gambling center and 20 shots were fired.

What apparently nobody checked in the Thuringian LKA, were the backgrounds of the two Italians in the vehicle. Nor why they were both in Naples in February 2014. Such an examination would have brought the investigators on an exciting development.

Michele S. * and Paolo H. * do not live in Italy but in Hannover. Just like a wide-ranging relationship of wives, siblings, brothers-in-law, uncles, aunts, sons and daughters. According to the SPIEGEL and the MDR, traces of this family network lead to one of the most powerful mafia organizations in the world: the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta.

Among other things, the wife of Michele S. from the Calabrian Ferrazzo clan come. As early as 2008, the BKA registered activities of the clan in Germany, including in Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia. According to an internal list of persons, Paolo H. also has connections to the Ferrazzo clan. One of his nephews is said to have married into the Calabrian mafia group.

Contact persists

These two Italians with connections to the 'Ndrangheta were caught in the counterfeiting operation in Naples together with a suspected Armenian mafia member from Erfurt. But the prosecutor Gera apparently did not see this connection. She informed on request that was not determined against the two Italians in Thuringia, because there was no suspicion of a crime. That is why they were not further examined.

The suspicion that Armenian and Italian mafia could work together is not new. A few years ago, Thuringian investigators had determined that alleged Armenian mafia members, including the counterfeiters, had taken over an Italian restaurant in Erfurt. This should have previously been in the hands of members of a 'Ndrangheta cell.

In any case, the contact between the Armenian counterfeiter and one of the two Italians with 'Ndrangheta connections continues. According to SPIEGEL and MDR information, both were checked together in a car at a traffic control in Erfurt on July 28 this year. What Paolo H. did in Erfurt, the police could not find out yet.

The LKA Lower Saxony, which is responsible for the two Italians, is also holding back. On request, it is merely confirmed that the counterfeit fund in Naples is known to the authority. Investigations in the specific case but there was none. The BKA announced that it would not comment on data protection reasons on persons and procedures.

* Changed name