page_title: 500 euro note
section_title: Crime
hierarchical_section_title: 500 euro note / Crime
caption_attribution_description: Português: nota de 500€ English: €500 bill
context_page_description: The five hundred euro note is the highest-value euro banknote and was produced between the introduction of the euro in 2002 until 2014. Since 27 April 2019, the banknote has no longer been issued by central banks in the euro area, but continues to be legal tender and can be used as a means of payment.
  It is one of the highest-value circulating banknotes in the world, worth around 550 USD, 3,943 CNY, 59,347 JPY, 533 CHF or 449 GBP as of May 2020.
  The note is used in the 23 countries which have the euro as their sole currency, with a population of about 343 million.
  Initially, the high denomination notes were introduced very rapidly so that in the first 7 years there were 530 million five hundred euro banknotes in circulation. Subsequently, the rate of increase was radically slowed. In June 2020, there were approximately 424 million banknotes in circulation. It is the least widely circulated denomination, accounting for 1.7% of the total banknotes.
  It is the largest note measuring 160 × 82 mm and has a purple colour scheme. The five hundred euro banknotes depict bridges and arches/doorways in modern architecture.
context_section_description: The value of the note is several times greater than many of the largest circulating notes of other major currencies, such as the United States 100 dollar bill. Thus a large monetary value can be concentrated into a small volume of notes. This facilitates crimes that deal in cash, including money laundering, drug dealing, and tax evasion. There have been calls to withdraw the note for this reason. However, some of the currencies the Euro replaced had widely used high-value notes, including the  5,000 Austrian schillings (€363), and 1,000 Dutch guilders (gulden) (€454), although these did not exceed the value of the €500 note. Two exceptions were the 1,000 Deutsche Marks, which had an equivalent value of €511, and 500 Latvian lats, which had an equivalent value of €711.
  Even though there were some valuable banknotes in the national currencies of Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, the number of banknotes was relatively small compared to the Euro banknotes. At the end of the year 2000 there were 89.20 million 1,000 Deutsche Mark banknotes, 13.97 million 5,000 Austrian Schilling banknotes and 13.28 million 1,000 Dutch Guilder banknotes in circulation. Latvia had a negligible number of 500 lat banknotes. In contrast the European Central Bank ordered the production of 371 million €500 banknotes before 1 July 2002.
  In particular, Spain had a quarter of all these high-value bills within its borders in 2006. This concentration of €500 notes is far greater than expected for an economy of Spain's size, as prior to conversion to euro the largest banknote was 10,000 Spanish pesetas, worth €60. These notes are rarely seen in every-day commerce – they have been nicknamed "Bin Ladens" by the populace (as the presence and appearance of the notes are well-known, but the notes themselves are very difficult to find). British and Spanish police are using the bills to track money laundering.
  As of 20 April 2010, money exchange offices in the United Kingdom were banned from selling €500 notes due to their use in money laundering. The Serious Organised Crime Agency claimed that "90% of all €500 notes sold in the UK are in the hands of organised crime", revealed during an eight-month analysis. The €500 note is worth in the region of £400, depending on exchange rates (around eight times the value of the Bank of England's largest publicly circulated note), and had, according to SOCA, become the currency choice for criminal gangs to hide their profits.
  The EU directive 2005/06/EC "on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purpose of money laundering and terrorist financing" tries to prevent such crime by requiring banks, real estate agents, tax and business advisors or agents, casinos and more companies to investigate and report usage of cash in excess of €15,000.
caption: One quarter of all 500 euro notes are recorded in Spain since its launch in 2002.
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