DUTCH MINT COUNTERFEITED BRITISH POUND COINS

The decision to replace the £1 coin with a new design to combat counterfeiting came after police broke up an international smuggling ring that had flooded Britain with at least £30m worth of fake coins. Dutch police swooped on a supposedly legitimate mint in Amsterdam after being tipped off by British police who discovered that huge consignments of the sophisticated copies were coming in through British ports. Detectives believe that the ring, which was supplying British crime syndicates, is the largest and most sophisticated the UK has ever seen.

The revelation of the operation’s scale came as Chancellor George Osborne announced that the £1 coin was to be replaced with a 12-sided design to help deter counterfeiting.

One industry source said: “This [counterfeiting] operation has been going on since at least 2006 and it is estimated that they have been producing around £4m worth of £1 coins each year, if not more. This is certainly the biggest operation the UK has seen, both in terms of scale and sophistication.”

In November last year, the Dutch anti-fraud officers raided the premises of a firm called the European Central Mint (ECM) and arrested the owner, Patrick Onel, 49, after discovering machines capable of producing hundreds of coins per minute. A man aged 67 was also arrested on suspicion of forgery and of possessing 3kg of cannabis. The police seized a coin-pressing machine. It is understood that the Dutch authorities were warned by the UK after counterfeit coins were seized in England in 2012.

Dutch police are understood to have found machinery capable of producing the master dyes used to make £1 coins, something that has never been seen before in UK forgeries.

“I am not sure that the FIOD [the Dutch anti-fraud agency] realised quite what they had come across when they raided the company’s premises, such was the sophistication of the technology .... Investigators are beginning to realise that this company had widespread connections with the UK and, by implication, must have been supplying many different criminal syndicates.”

To read the complete article, see: Dutch counterfeiting ring's £30m swindle behind decision to replace £1 coin (www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/dutch-counterfeiting-rings-30m-swindle-behind-decision-to-replace-1-coin-9210251.html)

Archives International Auctions, Part XVIII

Chinese and Asian Banknotes, Coin & Scripophily including additional properties from various consignors

April 12th 2014 in Hong Kong

Highlights include:

• Lot 1870. Hupeh Government Mint, 1899 Issue
• Lot 1904 Hong Kong, Chartered Bank of India, Australia & China, 1934, $50, P-56
• Lot 1551 Board of Commissioners of Currency ND 1976 $100 Specime
• Lot 1683 China, Bank of Communications, 1941, 500 Yuan, P-163a, SM126-263 F
• Lot 1806 International Banking Corporation, 1919 Tael Issue Specimen

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