Two Chinese tourists was arrested in France on suspicion of forging Euro coins after trying to settle their hotel bill with one-euro coins. 3,700 one-euro coins has been found by French police in the Chinese tourists' hotel room.
The Hotel owner in Bagnolet, eastern Paris, called the police after he became suspicious about the two men after they had tried to pay their 70-euro (£59) hotel bill with the 1 Euro Coins.
"Investigators suspected they were dealing with a case of forged currency," a source was quoted as saying by France's Le Parisien newspaper.
But banking experts checked the coins and confirmed that they were not fake.
The men said they had got the money from scrapyard dealers in China, who often find forgotten euros in cars sent from Europe.
It was later established that the two men - who have not been identified - had friends in the scrap metal trade in China and bought the coins from them.
Thousands of European cars are shipped to China for scrap every year.
They are meticulously searched before demolition - and it appears that the most common valuables left inside are one-euro coins.
