THE INDEPENDENT: Alarm at the Royal Mint as one in every 40 is found to be counterfeit
Criminal gangs have dramatically increased their output of counterfeit £1 coins in the past year, pumping millions of fakes into the economy and threatening to undermine public confidence in the money supply.
Sampling by the Royal Mint of coins in circulation across Britain has found that the number in circulation rose by 27 per cent during 2008, raising the amount of sham coinage to £37.5m – or one £1 coin in every 40 – the highest since the coin was introduced in 1983.
In 2002, one in 100 £1 coins was a worthless fake and in 2007 one in 50. Royal Mint officials are considering launching a public information campaign to warn the public how to spot the fakes.
Technically any person handing one over is breaking the law, meaning that millions of people are unwittingly committing a crime every year, but many of the fakes closely reproduce the metallic compound used by the Royal Mint, making them hard to detect by bank counting machines.
The rise in forgeries, revealed in documents obtained by The Independent, prompted a warning from an expert that their prevalence could undermine confidence in the money supply. >>> By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent, The Independent | Thursday, January 29, 2009
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