A total of 41 counterfeit banknotes were discovered in the first half of this year, down about 34% from a year earlier.
According to the "Status of Counterfeit Banknotes Discovered in the First Half of 2026" released by the Bank of Korea (BOK) on Monday, 41 counterfeit bills were found in circulation during the first half, down 21 notes, or 33.9%, from 62 in the same period a year earlier. The figure is unchanged from the second half of last year, which also recorded 41 notes.
By denomination, the 5,000-won note was the most common with 22 bills, followed by the 10,000-won note (11), the 50,000-won note (5) and the 1,000-won note (3).
The combined face value of the counterfeit bills discovered totaled 473,000 won, down 570,000 won from a year earlier. This was because counterfeit 50,000-won notes fell sharply from 15 in the first half of last year to five in the first half of this year.
Among the counterfeited serial numbers, 12 were newly discovered, led by the 50,000-won note (4), the 10,000-won note (4), the 5,000-won note (2) and the 1,000-won note (2), indicating that new counterfeiting attempts are concentrated on high-denomination notes, the BOK explained.
A serial number is a unique number assigned sequentially to banknotes during the currency manufacturing process, consisting of three letters and seven digits.
The proportion of counterfeit bills relative to banknotes in circulation in Korea has continued a gradual decline after falling significantly through 2019. As of the first half of this year, the number of counterfeit bills discovered per 100 million banknotes in circulation in Korea stood at 0.6. This is far below the levels of the United Kingdom (4,229), the European Union (1,461), Canada (1,411) and Japan (8.6) as of last year.
Meanwhile, the BOK on Monday awarded a Governor's Commendation to the Icheon Police Station in Gyeonggi Province for its significant contribution to preventing the circulation of counterfeit currency by arresting counterfeiters and those who used counterfeit money.
In November last year, the Icheon Police Station received a 112 emergency call reporting that "a bill received at a convenience store seemed odd," and conducted an investigation involving canvassing, mobile phone forensics and tracing the suspects' movements. It subsequently arrested two suspects who had counterfeited 20 50,000-won notes, as well as three suspects who received the bills and used 12 counterfeit notes at 11 locations including convenience stores.
