More counterfeit money: Cash is more often untrue again

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Wrong fifties: increase of 5.2 percent

Photo: Arne Dedert / dpa

Counterfeiters in Germany and Europe apparently benefited from the end of most corona restrictions in 2022.

The number of euro blossoms seized increased by 5.2 percent to 44,100 compared to the previous year, as announced by the Bundesbank in Frankfurt.

"This is probably due to the fact that the corona restrictions of the two previous years were largely lifted and folk festivals or Christmas markets took place again, where most payments are made in cash," said Burkhard Balz, who is responsible for cash on the Bundesbank board.

"Overall, however, the volume of counterfeit money remains very low: In purely mathematical terms, there were only five counterfeit banknotes per 10,000 inhabitants in 2022."

The calculated damage as a result of counterfeit money rose from 1.9 million euros in 2021 to 2.7 million euros.

According to the Bundesbank, this was mainly due to the fact that in several cases watches and cars were paid for with counterfeit 100 and 200 euro banknotes.

20 and 50 euro notes are particularly popular with criminals.

Together they accounted for 69 percent of all counterfeit notes discovered in Germany.

Significantly more counterfeit change

In Europe as a whole, the number of euro blossoms seized last year rose by 8.4 percent to 376,000.

The loss volume increased year-on-year from EUR 17.5 million to EUR 21.5 million.

Criminals sometimes also rely on easily recognizable printed forgeries that are offered on the Internet as play money or film props with the inscription “Movie Money” or “Prop copy”.

The proportion of such notes in the flowers seized in Germany fell from 22 percent to 17 percent.

»The issue has now reached the retail trade, but at the same time the pressure from the law enforcement authorities is increasing.

Placing Movie Money on the market can be a criminal offense,” Balz said.

Counterfeit money will not be replaced.

In 2022, on the other hand, significantly more counterfeit change was discovered.

The Bundesbank registered around 73,400 counterfeit coins.

In 2021 there were only 41,100.

The background is that companies collected suspicious coins for years and then gave them up in one fell swoop in 2022.

92 percent of all counterfeit coins registered were two-euro pieces.

apr/dpa