Arrests in forged transport ticket criminal network

Police in Catalonia, Spain, after a year-long investigation, have arrested ten people involved in a network to forge transport tickets, just as they were preparing to print a million tickets to be used in Barcelona's public transport system. The forged tickets were of a high quality and it is estimated that Barcelona's metro system alone lost at least US$1.6 million due to this scam. Autoridad del Transporte Metropolitano de Barcelona (ATM), the metropolitan transport authority for Barcelona, had already in
March 27, 2012 Read time: 1 min
Police in Catalonia, Spain, after a year-long investigation, have arrested ten people involved in a network to forge transport tickets, just as they were preparing to print a million tickets to be used in Barcelona's public transport system. The forged tickets were of a high quality and it is estimated that Barcelona's metro system alone lost at least US$1.6 million due to this scam.

4417 Autoridad del Transporte Metropolitano de Barcelona (ATM), the metropolitan transport authority for Barcelona, had already installed holograms in tickets in an attempt to combat forgery, but the network was trying to overcome this by importing fake holograms and expanding to other services and other cities. It is also suspected they were looking to expand into France.

The group distributed the forged tickets through stands and kiosks whose owners did not realise they were fakes and through personal contacts.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Switching Atlanta onto MaaS
    May 9, 2019
    It’s easy to talk about MaaS in the abstract – but MaaS isn’t going to work if it’s just a theory. Colin Sowman speaks to one woman about the practical benefits - and difficulties - of getting out of her car and switching to public transit in Atlanta, Georgia One of the first goals of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) inventor Sampo Hietanen is that MaaS should persuade households they don’t need a second car. This is starting to happen - even in the car-dominated US. Last year, authorities in the state of Ge
    Read More
  • How can US transportation be ‘re-envisioned’?
    October 17, 2019
    In her address to this year’s ITS America Annual Meeting, congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, chair of the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, called for a ‘re-envisioning’ of transportation. Her speech is below – and ITS International asks a number of US experts what they would like to see ‘re-envisioned’…

    I would like to welcome  ITS America to the nation’s capital.

    Read More
  • Sony helps Rio get a better view of the Olympics
    June 29, 2016
    With the Olympics approaching, Sony’s Stephane Clauss examines how the latest camera technologies can help cities cope with the huge crowds attending major events. This August will see more than 10,000 athletes head to Rio de Janeiro for the Olympics Games. Alongside them will be their coaching staff, a hoard of logistics teams, thousands of volunteer marshals (London 2012 had 70,000) and millions of spectators. All such major events have nervous jitters on the way to the opening ceremony. This year has see
    Read More
  • Keeping people on track is RATP’s raison d’etre
    June 14, 2018
    In Paris, RATP Group’s autonomous Metro Line 1 is carrying 750,000 people a day across the city. Ben Spencer is invited into the control room to take a look at how the system works Paris is visited by millions of tourists each year, keen to see for themselves stunning attractions such as the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Notre-Dame, the Louvre, the Seine and all the rest. But while the best-known sites of the City of Light tend to be on the surface, there is a lot going on below those iconic grand boule
    Read More

Highlighted Content