Do you still remember a news from BBC about a counterfeit £1 coin factory found hidden in a concealed room behind wooden panelling at Tonge Corner Farm, Tonge, near Sittingbourne on 13 May 2009? Stephen Silk, a 49-year-old man was jailed for three-and-a-half years last week after he admitted running a counterfeit coin factory producing thousands of fake £1 coins. The man ran the enterprise at a rented industrial unit until it was raided by police on May 13 last year. The case heard by Maidstone Crown Court, United Kingdom.
Photo by Dailymail: £8,000 of prepared coins and other counterfeiting paraphernalia.Sentencing him at Maidstone Crown Court, Judge Philip Statman said the 'highly sophisticated' venture was 'capable of undermining the system of currency in this country' and a deterrent sentence was therefore called for. Unemployed Silk, of Borden, Sittingbourne, pleaded guilty to making counterfeit £1 coins, having counterfeit materials and possessing counterfeit coins with a view to distributing them as genuine on July 24 last year, but sentencing was delayed until other other defendants went on trial. Jurors failed to reach verdicts on the charges against his father, Michael Silk, 79, of Iwade, near Sittingbourne, following a trial at the same court last December. The older man's brother-in-law Paul Bart, 65, of Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, was acquitted of all the charges.
Photo by Dailymail: Stephen Silk.Police officers were executing a search warrant for drugs when they discovered the counterfeiting factory at Tonge Corner Farm. Inside they found £8,000 worth of prepared coins and 14,000 yellow metal discs waiting to be pressed with the insignia on them. A hydraulic machine press was also found - used to stamp coins and add edging to the currency. Police officers also recovered other items including coin and die moulds, real coins with wax residue, special high temperature plaster and a water cooling system to cool the hydraulic coin press. Disposable latex gloves were recovered from a bin in the coin room which had Silk's DNA on them.
Source: Dailymail.uk
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