New pound coins in 2017

Started by andyg, March 18, 2014, 11:47:34 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Bimat

Dutch counterfeiting ring's £30m swindle behind decision to replace £1 coin

Sunday 23 March 2014

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.

Italy's elite finance police, the Guardia di Finanza, are understood to be involved in the multinational investigation. Italy is believed to be the source of up to 80 per cent of the EU's counterfeit euro banknotes. A recent EU audit of vending machines in Naples revealed a very high percentage of counterfeit coins.

"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."

The Dutch investigation is understood to have been sparked by the discovery of a consignment of hundreds of thousands of coins delivered to a port in north-east England in 2012. It is understood the coins were destined for an organised criminal gang in another part of the UK.

Also in 2013, customs officials intercepted another large consignment of counterfeit £1 coins at a port on the south coast, suspected of coming from the same source. Officials believe that other counterfeit coins discovered in the UK in recent years have come from the same source as the two recent consignments.

Police have been stunned at the sophistication of the ECM, which is understood to have had copies of most UK £1 coins and which industry sources said matched the sophistication of the Royal Mint.

The source said: "Whenever the police authorities broke up counterfeiting rings in the UK they thought that they would cut the supply of counterfeits, but that never happened. There was a constant interception of blue barrels coming into the UK. They knew that the barrels came from Germany and they would always have a two-inch layer of washers on the top to conceal the coins. The UK authorities now know that these barrels were being used by Onel and his operation."

In November last year, a Royal Mint survey found that the rate of counterfeit UK £1 coins in circulation had risen from 2.74 per cent to more than 3 per cent.

The Dutch authorities have been severely embarrassed by the revelation of a major counterfeit coin operation that went undetected for so long. Because ECM was supposedly a legitimate mint company, it was entitled to use the sophisticated coin-producing machines.

A spokesman for the Dutch prosecutor's office said: "There are two suspects, a 49-year-old man and a 67-year-old man, both from Amsterdam.... The owner is also suspected of money laundering and having a gun. The investigation was triggered by information from the Dutch tax office authorities."

In the UK, in a counterfeiting case at Shrewsbury Crown Court late last year, it was revealed that a syndicate had imported an Italian machine tool to help produce fake coins.

Source: The Independent
It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. -J. K. Rowling.

Bimat

By the way, does that also mean that Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Falkland Islands and Jersey will also switch to bimetallic £1 coin?

Aditya
It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. -J. K. Rowling.

augsburger

They don't have to change, but they probably will as they changed the 5 and 10p coins.

chrisild

Quote from: Bimat on March 23, 2014, 06:55:14 AM
Dutch counterfeiting ring's £30m swindle behind decision to replace £1 coin
(...) Source: The Independent

As for that ECM, also see this topic, particularly the later posts.

Christian

<k>

Quote from: Bimat on March 23, 2014, 07:01:12 AM
By the way, does that also mean that Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Falkland Islands and Jersey will also switch to bimetallic £1 coin?

Aditya

The Falklands and St Helena + Ascension are sometimes a bit slower in following suit. They might be a few years behind in making the matching adjustments to their coinage.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

Candy

Quote from: malj1 on March 19, 2014, 06:00:47 AM
The MailOnline added their quids-worth which is essentially the same as above, but they do say:

"why do we need wait 3 years for these?"

They do say its to allow time for the parking meters and slot machines to be updated to take the new coins.

I bet they wont be too pleased about having to update their machines again  >:D, after having just done so for the steel 5p and 10p coins not too long ago !

Candy

Quote from: Bimat on March 23, 2014, 07:01:12 AM
By the way, does that also mean that Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Falkland Islands and Jersey will also switch to bimetallic £1 coin?

Aditya

I was thinking about that earlier today !  They will have to do so as well;  the thing that gives me nightmares about this new pound coin is that once they start removing the old pound coins from circulation - pound coins from Isle of Man, Jersey , Gibraltar etc will also be removed and wont be possible to get in change anymore  :'(   :'(   :'(

<k>

Nothing lasts for ever. But the new coins from the other territories will soon make their way to Britain.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

Candy

Quote from: <k> on March 24, 2014, 10:22:12 AM
Nothing lasts for ever. But the new coins from the other territories will soon make their way to Britain.

So true , however I am now in a sort of arms race to find that Gibraltar Neandertal skull  pound and a Falkland islands one before its time out  ; this is were our American cousins are really lucky - they have never had coinage actively withdrawn from circulation so they can still find decades old stuff in their change  - I am sometimes envious of their situation  :-\

<k>

Yes, it was fun in the 1960s, when I would occasionally find Victorian veiled and bun head pennies and halfpennies. My father told me that coinage of George III still circulated in the 1930s, when he was a boy.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

Candy

Quote from: <k> on March 25, 2014, 12:20:29 AM
Yes, it was fun in the 1960s, when I would occasionally find Victorian veiled and bun head pennies and halfpennies. My father told me that coinage of George III still circulated in the 1930s, when he was a boy.

I wish had been around back then !
What are bun head pennies ?  ;D  Do you still have them ?

<k>

Now you mustn't wish your life away. Women sometimes put their hair in a "bun" at the back. (Do young women still use that term?) Some of the earlier coins show Victoria with a "bun".

I no longer have any. I ended up concentrating on post-WW1 coins.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

FosseWay

This is a bun penny.

In 1860 the size and composition of the bronze coins was changed (earlier they were larger and made of copper rather than bronze). The specifications remained the same through to 1971 (1960 for farthings) and thus pennies from 1860 onwards could be found in circulation right up to decimalisation.

malj1

Around 1950 my father received a 1816 George III sixpence in change, this I still have.

Silver from this date was in circulation until decimalisation although rarely found this old!
Malcolm
Have a look at  my tokens and my banknotes.

Pabitra

Quote from: chrisild on March 19, 2014, 10:37:19 PM
Ah, but isn't that like saying the $1 coin is quite common in the US? ;)  Yes, my own experiences are limited of course. Maybe things change, or it does depend on where one is.

Have not found much info about iSIS by the way. But apparently that is a feature which could be built into any coin, bimetallic or "monometallic". It just makes authentication easier ...

Christian

According to a two minute BBC video iSIS is a special material that can be added to the aRMour process which electroplates a 25 micro coating on coin blanks. OR
iSIS is a secret ingredient added to the alloy of the entire coin. They specifically say that it's not a coating and that "It's an ingredient that's throughout the alloy of the metal.
seethe video :Royal Mint designs 'unique' property to beat fake coins (www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-26125297)


Also see: How does the authentication in the new UK £1 coin work? (security.stackexchange.com/questions/53673/how-does-the-authentication-in-the-new-uk-1-coin-work)

To read the complete patent, see: Metallic materials with embedded luminescent particles (www.google.com/patents/US20110305919)