The number of fake £1 pound coins in the UK has reached more than 43 million a Freedom of Information request has revealed. 

Talking Retail report:

A Freedom of Information request made to the Royal Mint by payment solutions provider CardSave has revealed that there is £43,586,400 of forged currency at large in the UK, a figure that represents 2.86% of the 1.524 billion pound coins currently in circulation in the UK.

The Royal Mint has been surveying the number of counterfeit coins annually since 2002 and says that it is working closely with the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the cash handling industry to maximise efforts to identify and withdraw counterfeits from circulation.

Neither businesses nor individuals are compensated for counterfeit money returned to the Royal Mint.

You can read the full story here. 

Matthew Burgess
http://www.mattburgess.co
I am a journalist and author. I am a journalist at the UK edition of WIRED magazine. In 2015, my first book Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. My second book Reed Hastings: Building Netflix, was published in March 2020. I created FOI Directory in 2012 and have maintained it in my spare time ever since.