Brussels, 16/01/2012 (Agence Europe) - The number of false euro banknotes in circulation fell by 19.3% in 2011 on 2010, announced the European Central Bank (ECB) on Monday 16 January 2012, thus confirming the downward trend seen in recent years.
In the first half of 2011, a total of 310,000 false euro banknotes were withdrawn from circulation. The total number of counterfeit euro notes seized in 2011 is 19.3% lower than in the 2010 figure, but the number of false euro banknotes withdrawn from circulation in the second half of 2011 was 4.7% up on the first half of the year.
Compared with the number of genuine euro notes in circulation (an average of 14.4 billion notes in the second half of 2011), there are very few false notes. Counterfeit euro notes are usually twenty euro (47.6% of the total counterfeit notes) and fifty euro (32.5% of the total counterfeit notes). Over the past six months, the proportion of false twenty-euro notes has risen and fifty-euro fallen. False twenty and fifty-euro notes accounted for 80.0% of all counterfeited euro notes seized in the second half of 2011. The third most counterfeited note is the hundred-euro, accounting for 16% of false banknotes. A very small proportion of counterfeited notes are five, ten, two hundred and five hundred euro-notes.
Virtually all the false euro bank notes seized in the second half of 2011 (97.5 %) were found in the eurozone and only around 2.0% in non-euro member states. Only half a percent of the seized counterfeit euro banknotes were found outside the EU. (LC/transl.fl)