Euro Coin Recycling Scam

This story is just plain weird. Regularly, damaged coins are taken out of circulation. They’re destroyed and then sold to scrap metal dealers. That makes sense, but it seems that one- and two-euro coins aren’t destroyed very well. They’re both bi-metal designs, and they’re just separated into an inner core and an outer ring and then sold to Chinese scrap metal dealers. The dealers, being no dummies, put the two parts back together and sold them back to a German bank at face value. The bank was chosen because they accept damaged coins and don’t inspect them very carefully.

Is this not entirely predictable? If you’re going to take coins out of circulation, you had better use a metal shredder. (Except for pennies, which are worth more in component metals.)

Posted on April 13, 2011 at 6:25 AM • 35 Comments