International   

U.K. faces fake coins threat

— Photo: AFP

A file photo of sterling notes and coins.

London: There could be as many as 30 million fake £-1 coins in circulation thanks to a boom in counterfeiting.

A sampling test by the U.K.’s Royal Mint showed the number of counterfeit coins appears to have doubled in the past five years, suggesting that one in every 50 £-1 coins is not genuine. When the last test was conducted in 2003, the proportion of forged coins was put at 1 per cent.

Although the Royal Mint said the forgery represented “a comparatively low incidence of counterfeit coins by international monetary standards,” some experts disagreed. Robert Matthews, the Queen’s assay master at the mint until he retired to become a consultant four years ago, said confidence in coins had collapsed in other countries when forgery rates reached similar levels. “In 2004, people started refusing to take the South African five-rand coin due to concerns about the number of counterfeits, and eventually the coin had to be redesigned and re-circulated,” he told the BBC.

“Independent surveys showed the number of counterfeits to be 2 per cent — the same as we’ve got here — and I’m worried that if we’re not careful the same thing will happen to the pound coin,” he said.

The euro coin seems to be more forgery-proof. Two years ago, it was estimated that only around 0.1 per cent of the 13 billion coins in circulation were fakes.

In a statement, the Royal Mint said: “We track the counterfeit rate through regular surveys in the spring and autumn every year. The survey consists of taking a random sample of coins from across the country, and subjecting them to individual analytical inspection. It is a criminal offence to make or use counterfeited coins. Any member of the public who suspects that they have a counterfeited coin should not attempt to spend it.”

The first £-1 coin was issued on April 21, 1983. Over the last quarter of a century, the designs on the backs of the coins have featured, among other things, thistles, leeks, flax plants, oak trees, lions rampant, dragons passant, Celtic crosses and the Gateshead Millennium bridge. At the end of December 2005, the Royal Mint estimated that there were 1,452 million £-1 coins in circulation. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

US spy plane crashes in Pak tribal area
Afghan officials in drug trafficking: Moscow
Norway must assist our relief effort: Rajapaksa
Brown defies critics amid applause
Crash course in diplomacy for Palin
British MPs criticised
Longest-held prisoner freed in Myanmar
U.S. acknowledges Pakistan’s sovereignty
U.K. faces fake coins threat
9 die in Finnish school shooting

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu