Euro counterfeit explosion

551,287 fake euro notes and 26,191 bogus euro coins were removed from EU circulation in 2003 – an explosion in numbers since 2002.

The European Commission in Brussels and the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, publishing the figures, have confirmed that the number of detected coins has multiplied 12 fold since 2002 – when only 2,339 coins were found.

As for euro banknotes, the number of counterfeit specimens has jumped 89 per cent since the second half of 2002.

The 2-euro coin suffers the most from criminal counterfeiting with over 19 thousand found in 2003 by national member state banks.

According to the commission, three illegal coin workshops were dismantled in 2003; two in Italy and one in Portugal.

And 5,800 counterfeit 1-euro coins were seized by Greek police in the same year.

Despite the high numbers, Brussels and Frankfurt maintain counterfeit cases of the euro found in circulation are far lower than that of national currencies before the introduction of the European single currency in January 2002.

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