More often, criminals counterfeited 100 US dollar banknotes.
In Ukraine, the number of counterfeit banknotes – hryvnia and foreign currency – is growing. At the end of the first half of 2024, for every 1 million pieces of real banknotes, there were 3.4 counterfeits. This is an increase of 62% compared to last year.
The NBU reported this in response to a request from the Ministry of Finance.
In April-May 2024, the National Bank observed a short-term increase in the activity of counterfeiters, which is explained by a certain adaptation to the realities of martial law and the desire of attackers to test the effectiveness of countering such cases, the National Bank explained the situation.
However, the regulator still considers the current increase in the number of counterfeits to be moderate. The department emphasizes that before the start of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, this figure was noticeably higher – 7.1 counterfeits per 1 million real money.
In Ukraine, criminals prefer to “draw” not the euro, but the American dollar. Among counterfeit foreign currency banknotes withdrawn from circulation in the first half of 2024 (as in 2021-2023), US dollars dominated – 95%. At the same time, most often the attackers counterfeited banknotes with a face value of 100 US dollars.
It became known earlier that from August 1, 2024, the National Bank will begin to withdraw from circulation banknotes of the old style 500 hryvnia (2003-2007) in order to gradually replace them with banknotes of the modern generation, namely 2014 and subsequent years of issue.
