April 17, 2014. 17,547 fake banknotes modeled on those issued by the Bank of Russia were detected in Russia in the first quarter of 2014. This can be compared with 17,923 fake banknotes detected in January-March 2013, which means the figure went down by 2.1% in one year, Banki.ru reports.

5,297 fake bills were detected in January 2014, 5,833 bills were detected in February, and 6,367 bills were detected in March.

The five-thousand-ruble bill proved the most-often-forged one: 11,916 fake 5,000-ruble banknotes were found, followed by 4,520 fake 1,000- RUR banknotes, 948 fake 500-RUR banknotes, 100 fake 100-RUR banknotes, 11 fake 50-RUR banknotes, 8 fake 10-RUR banknotes, one fake 10-RUR coin, and 43 fake 5-RUR coins.

437 fake foreign currency bills were also found, including 405 fake US dollar bills, 29 fake Euro bills, and 3 RMB bills.

As for Ural Federal District, 637 fake bills were uncovered there.