Rupee third on fake foreign currency list in Switzerland

As per Federal Office of Police figures, total number of fake rupee notes seized during 2014 was 181, down from 403 previous year

With Switzerland remaining in focus in India's fight against black money stashed abroad, the quantum of counterfeit Indian rupee seized by Swiss Police is third highest among all foreign currencies despite a sharp fall from the previous year.

As per the latest 'counterfeit statistics' released by the the Federal Office of Police (Fedpol), the total number of counterfeit Indian rupee notes seized during 2014 stood at 181, down from 403 in the previous year.

This is third highest among all foreign currencies after the euro (2,860) and the US dollar (1,101).

The quantum of fake Swiss francs remained much higher at 16,054 during 2014, the data shows.

However, the number of fake Swiss franc notes has also more than halved from the previous year, although the numbers have increased for the euro and the US dollar from 2013 levels.

Among other major currencies, the Swiss police seized 71 counterfeit Chinese yuan notes and 77 British pound notes during 2014.

According to the Fedpol data, the number of fake euro notes seized in the year 2013 stood at 2,394, while there were 1,101 fake US dollar bills.

The fake Indian rupee notes seized during 2014 included 145 for five-hundred denomination, 35 one-thousand-bills and one for one-hundred denomination.

The number of fake Indian rupee notes found in Switzerland was third highest in 2013, which included 380 fake Rs 500 notes and another 23 counterfeit Rs 1,000 notes.

The numbers have declined considerably since 2012 when Fedpol found as many as 2,624 fake rupee notes -- the second highest among foreign currencies after 5,284 counterfeit US dollar notes at that time. The number of fake Euro notes was third highest during that year at 2084.

The number of fake Swiss franc notes stood at 4,309 during 2012.