United Kindom says goodbye to 500-Euro notes

The British government has decided to take the 500-euro Euro banknote out of circulation. Not many ordinary British people or visitors to Britain will notice this change, unless they are criminals. The bill is worth about $630, so it is very attractive to criminal gangs. They use it to launder money or to transport large sums of money. This will have a big impact on organized crime in Britain. It used to be easy for them to take huge sums of cash into Britain. A million dollars in €500 notes weighs just 2.2kg. That’s very easy to carry on board a plane. The same amount in £50 notes weighs 22kg, which is the weight limit for a suitcase in economy class. A spokesman said “the €500 note is a comfortable choice” for criminals, but now the ban means their “comfort zone” has gone. Britain's Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) said 90 per cent of the €500 notes in the U.K. was being used for criminal purposes. A spokesman said there was no “legitimate use for the €500 note in the UK” and that “easy access to them in the UK is a key enabler of criminal activity”. He added the notes allowed criminals “to move large volumes of cash effectively". The €500 note is currently the second largest value banknote in the world. The most valuable bill is the 1,000 Swiss Franc note, which is worth around US$900. None of these bills can compare to the note former U.S. President Woodrow Wilson introduced in the 1930s. His $100,000 bills were for certificates for people who owned gold. In today’s money, one of these notes would be worth $1.6 million.