The Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) and the National Bank of Panama (BNP) detected the circulation of counterfeit coins of the Balboa denomination.
According to the authorities, the coins detected are those minted in 2019, alluding to the Nuestra Señora de la Merced church and the logo of the Unicolor World Youth Day.
Given this, the authorities filed a complaint on April 5 with the Attorney General of the Nation, Javier Caraballo, to initiate the pertinent investigations. In a statement, both the MEF and the BNP detailed that counterfeit coins could present certain irregularities.
For example, the word Panama at the bottom of the front may be misspelled to say Pananá. In addition, the edge of the circumference has a poor finish of the engraving of the text and striations, the gold color is lighter and the silver color is darker.
Both entities requested that to detect these counterfeit coins they should proceed in the same way as when fake dollar bills circulate; proceed with its destruction or alert the authorities.