According to this article published on The New Zealand Herald's website on Wednesday 2 August, the amount of counterfeit currency discovered in the 12 euroland countries is now running at 600,000 notes a year - roughly the same as before the single currency was introduced.

"Europe's counterfeiters - and some elsewhere in the world, including Colombia - appear to have overcome many of the technical problems," it says.

"A determined faker can now buy a machine which reproduces the hologrammes in