Counterfeit US dollar bills with a total value of one billion dollars were seized today during a search of a warehouse in Istanbul, the Gendarmerie claimed, which released a video of the loot.

Footage released by police shows agents searching a warehouse and opening large wooden crates full of counterfeit money. According to the authorities, the fake banknotes were prepared for export abroad, specifically to Africa. Six suspected counterfeiters were arrested, including citizens of Sweden and Ghana.

Members of the Gendarmerie tracked the suspects to a warehouse in Istanbul's Kagitane district, where the fake $100 bills were located, authorities said.

The gendarmerie said it was about ten million $100 bills, which is the largest seizure of counterfeit money in the country's history. This caused reactions expressing doubts about the reliability of the amount and quantity of seized counterfeit money. One Twitter user says that the average $100 bill weighs about one gram, meaning that ten million bills would weigh about 10.000 tons. Therefore, the weight of a billion dollars in such notes would approximate the capacity of a fully loaded average container ship, and the footage does not show anywhere near that amount of money seized, said the Twitter user, illustrating the arguments with a photo of the Chinese ship Cosco Guangzhou, which has a carrying capacity of approximately 10.000 tons.