Currency Counterfeiting

The production of fake money outside the legal sanction of a government, made in a deliberate attempt to imitate genuine currency and deceive whoever receives it, constituting both fraud and forgery under law. The practice is illegal worldwide, though penalties vary sharply by jurisdiction, ranging from around nine years imprisonment in the Netherlands to life imprisonment in China, Japan and several other countries; historically it was treated as treason rather than an ordinary crime, and counterfeiters in England faced execution by hanging or burning as recently as the eighteenth century. Because it artificially expands the money supply, currency counterfeiting causes economic harm distinct from other counterfeit goods, reducing the value of legitimate money in circulation and contributing to inflation, and it is described as one of the oldest forms of fraud.