Venezuela coin scam update

Hannah Dreier, the wonderful AP correspondent in Caracas, reports that coins have disappeared there. And yet the Venezuelan mint says it continues to produce them (Excel sheet).

Here are the number of pieces in circulation over the past couple years:

Thanks to the miracles of Excel, I was able to use that table to calculate a minimum number of how many pieces have been minted in the past two years, past year, and past month. (Note that this is net of any coins intentionally taken out of service, but that number is probably very small.)

Another 1-minute search, another Venezuela scandal

You folks love these, so don’t mind me if I keep throwing them out there. A pal in Venezuela points out that you need a lot of 50-bolivar notes, now worth about US$1.50, just to get by, and that the 100-bolivar note remains the largest in circulation, five years after the disappearance of three zeroes from the currency so as to “strengthen it.” That’s all old hat, but it drives me to this monthly table from Venezuela’s central bank. Click it, you love Excel tables.

Then, with the miracle of subtraction, I take the number of coins or bills in circulation in June, from the second sheet of that document, and I subtract the number in June 2012, and that way I can see how many new coins and bills have been put into circulation in that 12-month period.