The 500 euro note has not been issued for years. However, counterfeits of the purple banknotes have played a major role in recent frauds.
Jewelry, a watch or a car have been sold – but instead of the agreed sum, the sellers are stuck with counterfeit money. In several cases last year, criminals foisted Euro money on unsuspecting owners of luxury goods on a large scale. This drove up the number of counterfeit money in Germany and Europe.
According to the Bundesbank, police, retailers and banks withdrew almost 56,600 counterfeit euro notes from circulation in this country. That was a good 28 percent more than a year before. “The increase in the number of counterfeit money is due to a few larger cases of fraud, primarily involving counterfeit 200 and 500 euro banknotes,” explained Bundesbank board member Burkhard Balz on Monday. According to the Bundesbank, 8,763 counterfeit 200s were seized, compared to 2,396 a year earlier. The number of 500-euro counterfeits increased from 989 to 2,641.
Production and issuance of the 500 euro banknote was stopped in 2019. However, the purple notes in circulation are still legal tender. The amount of damage rose above average by almost 90 percent to 5.1 million euros, primarily as a result of the dozen or so cases of fraud involving large amounts. The highest calculated loss from counterfeit money in Germany was recorded in 2004 at 6.1 million euros.
Real notes exchanged for counterfeit money
Criminals use a simple trick to commit fraud: they first show the sellers of luxury goods bags full of real bills and then, in an unobserved moment, exchange them for bags full of counterfeit money. Those affected are doubly unlucky: the valuable goods are gone and the counterfeit money will not be refunded.
Nevertheless, Balz reassures: “Despite the significantly higher number of counterfeits, the risk for normal citizens of coming into contact with counterfeit money is still low.” According to calculations by the Bundesbank, on average there would be seven counterfeit banknotes for every 10,000 inhabitants in Germany in 2023. “The numbers are far away from the all-time high of 2015,” said Balz. At that time, 95,400 flowers were taken out of circulation in Germany.
In Europe, too, the number of Euro flowers seized rose significantly last year: by 24.2 percent to 467,000. On average, there were 14 counterfeit notes for every 10,000 inhabitants. The volume of damage increased year-on-year from 21.5 million to 25.0 million euros.
Lots of poor quality fakes
“Overall, you can say that the quality of the counterfeits has not increased,” emphasized Balz. “On the contrary: we have a large mass of counterfeit banknotes of very low quality.” For the majority of counterfeits, a simple glance is enough to recognize them as such.
Easily recognizable counterfeits, particularly of 10 and 20 euro notes with the imprint “MovieMoney” or “Prop copy”, made up a large proportion of the flowers in Germany last year – 16 percent. These banknotes, which are offered on the Internet as play money or film props, have no security features. Yet people still fall for it again and again.
The owner of a grocery store in Ludwigshafen only alerted the police the second time a girl tried to pay with a counterfeit 20 euro note. The day before, the eleven-year-old had had a note exchanged in the shop marked as film money.
Redesign of the euro notes
The euro’s currency watchdog is already working on new security features to make it even more difficult for criminals to imitate the banknotes. The European Central Bank (ECB) is letting people in Europe have a say in the redesign of the banknotes: in surveys last year, citizens favored themes from European culture as well as rivers and birds as motifs.
However, it will still be a few years before people hold the new notes in their hands. By the end of 2024, an advisory group will propose motives for the selected topics. A design competition will then take place. Citizens should then be asked again for their opinion. The ECB is expected to make a decision on the final design and timing of production and issue of the new banknotes in 2026. Experience has shown that it then takes two to three years until the new notes come into circulation.
Source: Stern
