The fight against counterfeiting
Overview
The counterfeiting of banknotes and coins, like that of any other object of value, is an age-old activity rooted in the tendency to covet objects of beauty or value that cannot be possessed. Banknote counterfeiting, an activity as old as money itself, is linked to the desire to obtain wealth by deceiving and defrauding others. Hence the counterfeiting of money has always been considered to be illicit, and is classed as a criminal offence and punishable by law.
The recent history of banknotes is closely tied up with the ongoing endeavours of monetary authorities to improve the quality and security of banknotes and thus increase citizens' confidence in them. It is aimed to make banknotes more convenient and useful for citizens, capable of making trade and payments go more smoothly, representative of some element of national sovereignty, long-lasting and easily identifiable and, above all, difficult to counterfeit.
The efforts of the authorities to produce banknotes with the most advanced printing techniques and the regular renewal of banknotes in circulation, replacing older series with others that are more modern, up-to-date and newly designed, has meant that the counterfeiting of legal tender banknotes has been held at low levels and has had a minimal social impact. Hence the counterfeiting of banknotes is a marginal activity in all countries, but it has kept the authorities in a permanent state of alert because it affects one of the basic features of banknotes: confidence.
In Spain the Criminal Code expressly sets forth the offences relating to the counterfeiting of banknotes and coins. This was so with the peseta and it continues to be the case with the euro in its capacity as Spain's national currency and legal tender. But in addition to defining and regulating punishable acts, the authorities are focusing their efforts on establishing appropriate prevention and enforcement policies aimed at minimising the risk of counterfeiting. In the case of the euro, counterfeiting is combated in four basic ways:
- Legal definition of offences and their regulation under national legislation.
- The establishment of police bodies and structures entrusted with pursuing and capturing offenders for prosecution in the courts of all Member States.
- The formation of high-level specialist groups to gather data, compile statistics, hold banknotes in custody and assess and validate them, and analyse, classify and evaluate the different types of counterfeiting.
- The establishment of a network for co-ordinating and supervising all activity to prevent and combat counterfeiting at supranational level, establishing channels of information exchange and co-ordination in technical and police operations in all euro area countries.
Police co-ordination is structured around las the national central offices (NCOs) of each country, while that of the specialist technical groups is organised around the National Analysis Centres (NACs).
In Spain the National Central Office is assigned to the Banco de España Monetary Offences Investigation Brigade and the functions of the National Analysis Centre are assigned to the Banco de España Cash and Issue Department. Hence two bodies distinguished by the specialisation and training of their specialists work together in co-ordination, exchanging and sharing information at the highest level to achieve the greatest possible success in the fight against counterfeiting. Both the NAC and the NCO act at supranational level through the European Central Bank (CAC - Counterfeit Analysis Centre) and Europol, respectively, to co-ordinate their operations by sharing information with the other member countries of the Eurosystem.