European police have dismantled a counterfeit money printing gang with links to the Italian mafia (Camorra) arresting 44 people.

Forty suspects were also arrested in Italy and one in Belgium in the culmination of a years-long investigation coordinated by policing agency Europol, according to France's OCRFM, the branch of the police force dealing with counterfeiting.

Police also seized eight million euros ($9.1 million) in cash and the same value in property.

They are suspected of having produced counterfeit money, mainly 50-euro notes, with a face value of some 10 million euros.

"For several years now, 90 percent of high-quality counterfeit currency (in circulation) has come from Italy," Eric Bertrand of the OCRFM told AFP.

In France, one person was arrested in Charente, and the other two, Italian-French and Italian, were arrested in the Paris region.

Bertrand of told AFP news agency that they are expected to be tried on Thursday before they are extradited to Italy.

The investigation was launched by the Italian authorities in January 2018 and related to a currency counterfeiting network linked to the Camorra mafia, according to the same source.