Strategies to Beat the Counterfeiting of Money Allister McCallum Head of Counterfeit Analysis Centre European Central Bank European Serious & Organised Crime Conference Liverpool, 5 March 2008
2 basic assumptions: Consider only banknotes coin counterfeiting is a much lower threat Counterfeiting of money will never be beaten but it can be reduced
Scale of the problem In 2007: Approx 50,000 counterfeits were removed from circulation each month face value: €3.3mn Approx 12bn genuine banknotes were in daily circulation face value €677bn
Factors affecting counterfeiting Motivation Means Opportunity
Types of counterfeiter Casual counterfeiter Dedicated criminal counterfeiter Hostile state counterfeiter
Addressing the threat Ensuring a good legal framework Ensuring a good organisational framework Making genuine notes harder to reproduce Making counterfeits harder to pass
Questions Can we ever ‘beat’ counterfeiting? If not, what is an ‘acceptable’ level? What are the risks? Are they serious? Does anything (else) need to be done? By whom? What if there is a huge counterfeiting emergency? How will we know? Do informant rewards cause more harm than good?