ECB says 8 percent more counterfeit banknotes recovered in last year’s 2nd half

Amount of counterfeit euros up, ECB says

BERLIN — The number of counterfeit euro bank notes withdrawn from circulation rose 8 percent during the last six months of 2009, with the euro20 ($28.80) bill the most widely forged, the European Central Bank said Monday.

Some 447,000 fake bills were recovered between July and December, up from 413,000 in last year’s first half, the Frankfurt-based central bank for the 16-nation eurozone said.

The ECB said it couldn’t offer an explanation for the rise but noted that forgery figures fluctuate over time. It said in a statement that “the proportion of counterfeits is still very low” in comparison with an increasing number of genuine bank notes in circulation. The number of real bills averaged 12.8 billion in the second half.

The increase in counterfeits recovered in the second half was not as sharp as in the previous six months, when there was a 17 percent jump.

The total number of counterfeit notes recovered in 2009 was 860,000 — up from 666,000 the previous year.

The forger’s favorite euro bill remains the euro20 note, which accounted for 47 percent of the forgeries, the ECB said. It was followed by the euro50 note, which accounted for 39 percent.

More than 98 percent of the counterfeits were recovered in eurozone countries, with only 1 percent found in European Union nations that don’t use the currency and a mere 0.5 percent elsewhere.

In a separate report Monday, the European Commission said that the number of counterfeit euro coins taken out of circulation declined by 12 percent for the whole of 2009 — dropping to 172,100 from the previous year’s 195,900.

It contrasted that figure with the total of about 15 billion genuine coins in circulation and said that the forgeries are not “a significant cause of concern for the public.” The decrease was the second in a row.

The biggest-denomination euro2 coin was easily the most-forged, accounting for three-quarters of the total, or 127,500 coins.

Efforts to remove forged coins from circulation have been increasingly effective in recent years, the Commission said.

Last year saw increasing reports on fake coins seized outside the EU, it added, without offering numbers. It noted that it made cooperation deals with Montenegro and Croatia and stepped up collaboration with Turkey.