 |
Britain stops 500 euro note sales over crime fears
The action does not mean the banknote is banned in Britain -- tourists will be able to sell them if they bring them into the country -- but it will not be possible to buy them from exchange offices.
SOCA said its analysis had found the 500 euro note, worth about 425 pounds or 630 dollars, was used in all stages of money laundering as well as in low level criminality and tax evasion.
The denomination is particularly attractive to criminals in Britain because it takes up less than a tenth of the space of the alternatives in sterling, making smuggling much easier.
An adult male “mule” could stuff and swallow 150,000 euros while 20,000 euros could be hidden in a cigarette packet.
In Britain, most of the notes had been supplied by small independent money service businesses (MSB) rather than large high street outlets, SOCA said.
It found one such MSB in London, which had a single outlet with no street frontage, had purchased about 4 million euros in 500 euro notes for onward sale, with its demand for the note exceeding that of a national retailer with 12,500 branches. “Access to the 500 euro note will be much more difficult and anyone trying to source them in quantity will attract attention,” SOCA said.
The agency said it would now be monitoring the demand for 200 euro notes to see if there was any increase in demand for them instead.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| BÜLENT KENEŞ |  |
||
| What befell Niyazi-i Misri in the past is happening to Fethullah Gülen now | |||
| EKREM DUMANLI |  |
||
| When a call for fairness and reason finds acceptance | |||
| ŞAHİN ALPAY |  |
||
| Uludere, test case for democracy in Turkey | |||
| EMRE USLU |  |
||
| Are the Kurds mentally divorced from Turkey? | |||
| GÖKHAN BACIK |  |
||
| Erdoğan, Gül and Davutoğlu: the inner bargain on Turkish foreign policy | |||
| MARKAR ESAYAN |  |
||
| Taking lessons from previous experiences with the military | |||
| YAVUZ BAYDAR |  |
||
| Qualm | |||
| ÖMER TAŞPINAR |  |
||
| A new phase in Syria? | |||
| İHSAN DAĞI |  |
||
| Turkish foreign policy: Time for a re-evaluation | |||
| SEYFETTİN GÜRSEL |  |
||
| Poor-friendly economic growth and the AK Party | |||
| CHARLOTTE MCPHERSON |  |
||
| Missing women, missing opportunities | |||
| BERK ÇEKTİR |  |
||
| Changes to incentives for investment in Turkey | |||
| MERVE BÜŞRA ÖZTÜRK |  |
||
| The 1960 coup: a final test for democracy | |||
| AMANDA PAUL |  |
||
| Ukraine: a lost country | |||
| MÜMTAZER TÜRKÖNE |  |
||
| The 52nd anniversary of May 27 | |||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
