Magic fingers and an unerring eye gave “Hologram Tam”, one of the best forgers in Europe, the skills to produce counterfeit banknotes so authentic that when he was arrested nearly £700,000 worth were in circulation.

Thomas McAnea, 58, who was jailed for six years and four months yesterday, was the kingpin of a professional operation based in Glasgow that, according to police, had the capacity to produce £2 million worth of fake notes a day – enough potentially tom destabilise the British economy. More may remain out there undetected.

He had evaded a long prison sentence in 2000 on a technicality after being caught with £1.6 million of counterfeit money.

McAnea could have been living in a fabulous mansion in the Glasgow suburbs, like the drug barons to whom he was a service industry. But the expert forger of holograms and watermarks had no such aspirations. He was unambitious and nondescript, with a serious drink problem. Police sources say that he appeared to have barely two pennies to rub together. Instead, Hologram Tam seemed motivated by the satisfaction of a job well done.

When detectives from the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency raided his tiny print shop last January, £500,000 in Bank of Scotland £20 notes were being printed. The gang also had in their possession €500,000 (£350,000) in forged notes.

John McGregor, 49, Steven Todd, 24, and Robert Fulton, 63, were each jailed for four years. Joseph McKnight, 57, was sentenced to three years in jail, while Rodney Cadogan, 39, of London, was jailed for 15 months. A seventh member of the group, Maria Campbell, 39, a fashion designer, was ordered to carry out 150 hours of community service.

As a result of the raid, another £672,880 worth of counterfeit notes were recovered from the banking system. “Some of Hologram Tam’s money is still out there. It’s that good that if I gave you one of his notes, you wouldn’t know it,” a police source said.

The detectives also found templates for other forgeries including passports, driving licences, ID cards, bank statements, utility bills, MoT certificates, postage and saving stamps and TV licences. McAnea’s tiny shop, Print Link (Scotland) Ltd, was passed every day by commuters who had turned off the M8. It appeared to offer small-scale printing, mainly menus for Chinese restaurants. But the site, near the motorway, was useful because Tam’s skills with holograms were sought by criminals from all over the country.

Operation Fender began in October 2005 after a tip-off from the Metropolitan Police that an unusually large number of fake Bank of Scotland £20 notes were in circulation in London. The force had also recovered a suitcase that contained almost £3 million worth of fake euros, awaiting watermarks and holograms. It was established that these notes were destined for McAnea.

In 1998 McAnea and McGregor were sentenced to up to ten years in prison for their first forgery exercise, which came to light at the time of the Euro 96 football championships, when they were caught with £1.6 million of fake notes that they intended to circulate via the Scottish supporters. But because of a police error on the date of the warrant, the forgers were freed on appeal at the Court of Appeal in Edinburgh in 2000.

McAnea’s defence counsel said that he turned to drink after losing two sons, one aged 2, and the other aged 22 after a drugs overdose. A third son is a doctor. He appears to have run into debt and in 1996 the Allied Irish Bank, to whom he owed £15,000, called in the receivers to his then legitimate company Tronprint in Glasgow. By then, it seems that McAnea had already turned to forgery.

Graeme Pearson, the head of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, said that McAnea, a former print union official, “had the touch of the geek about him” and said that he was content with the sentences. He said “People think it’s a bit of a wheeze, a B movie, producing banknotes in your kitchen, but in actual fact what we have is something that enables criminal gangs to profit.”

Case notes

£20 The gang’s counterfeit notes were so authentic that many more than those to the value of £700,000 in circulation at the time of McAnea’s arrest may remain undetected

£500,000 The value of fake Bank of Scotland banknotes found in McAnea’s tiny print shop last January

£1.6m Hologram Tam and John McGregor were sentenced in 1998 to up to ten years in prison for their first forgery exercise

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