(Jamma) Tons of new counterfeit one and two euro coins were seized last week by customs officers at Brussels' Zaventem international airport. The news, published by the Flemish business newspaper De Tijd, made the rounds of the country's media, which are now questioning the effectiveness of the measures put in place by the national authorities to combat the phenomenon.
For "Lo Sportello deiRights" seizures of this type are just the tip of the iceberg, that of the counterfeiting of counterfeit coins, which only last year marked a 17% increase in the number of coins seized, in particular from two EUR.
According to the Rights Desk "One of the channels most exploited by counterfeiters and drug dealers to get counterfeit coins into circulation is that of vending machines for drinks, food, cigarettes or parking meter tickets, despite the fact that they are equipped with devices capable of recognizing weight and dimensions, but also to return “good” coins as change, once the service has been used”.
The attention of the "Rights Window" is therefore directed to all those companies that deal with these devices, but also to the "municipalized companies" that receive thousands of euros a day from the parking meters scattered on the municipal roads near the toll areas, to understand if all these are doing their duty or if, once the "false" money has been discovered, instead of delivering it to one of the subjects indicated by the law, which include banks, post offices, investment and asset management companies savings, stockbrokers and insurance companies put it back into circulation to the detriment of unsuspecting consumers and the state.
It is a complaint, explains Giovanni D'Agata, president and founder of the "Rights Window", which we address in particular to the tax police, so that they can carry out the appropriate checks against the subjects most interested, so that one of the major distribution channels of the fake coins.
At the same time, we invite companies with public capital, such as the municipal companies that manage parking meters or those that hold concessions of this type, to make an operation transparent and to publicly declare what their actions are when they come into possession of counterfeit change.
Meanwhile, data released in recent weeks by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) reveal that the rate of counterfeit coins seized in the EU in 2012 increased by 17% over the previous year, going from 157 to 184. Out of about 16,5 billion of metallic currency in use, one in every 100 is counterfeit and the two-euro one is favored by criminal organizations, equal to two-thirds of the total. Of the 184 counterfeits withdrawn from circulation, 121 were for two euros, 32 were for one, and 31 for 50 cents.
