Large-Scale BE Coin Counterfeits

A commercial mint is suspected by English and Dutch police of manufacture and marketing of counterfeit £1 coins, which presumably caused the Bank of England to consider issuance of £1 coins with a radically new design.

The crime is investigated to have been committed by the European Central Mint in Amsterdam, which brought over 30m counterfeit £1 coins to the UK. According to Dutch police, the mint owners under the guise of a legitimate business have been engaged in criminal activities since 2008, marketing about 4 million fake coins per year.

Batches of counterfeit £1 coins were packed in blue plastic industrial containers topped-up by 10-cm thick steel washers to help hide their real content. The cargo was often shipped via Germany before transporting to ports in south and north-east England.

The clients of the European Central Mint included the Central Bank of Surinam, for which it won a contract in 2011 to supply investment and commemorative coins. Last November, the Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service raided and closed down the mint, arresting its owners. True reasons for shutting the organization down were long concealed before details about its counterfeiting activities have lately come to light with the news of the £1 coin reissuance in the UK. According to recent reports, the counterfeit coins are around 3% of the total in circulation.

Source: Currency News