British counterfeiter comes clean on coins

LONDON, Nov. 29 (UPI) -- A former British counterfeiter says it was relatively easy for him to produce mass quantities of phony 1-pound coins.

Speaking to The Mail on Sunday, Bill Cook, 62, who served four years for the crime and now lives on a barge on a London canal, said that for $132,000 he was able to purchase the hydraulic presses and equipment needed to mint the coins from blank metal discs, which only cost pennies apiece.

"We'd phone a number, they'd tell us to leave a van on a street in (East London), for instance, and then we'd get a call telling us when it was ready," Cook told the newspaper. "We'd put 5,000 blanks at a time into vibrating machines along with a jewelery-cleaning compound and a drop of water. By the time the machine had finished its cycle, the blanks were nice and clean."

After finishing the process with other machines, newly minted 1-pound coins were ready for distribution. Cook told the newspaper that on a good day, he could produce as many as 20,000 coins, though he says it was usually closer to 10,000.