The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has made an arrest after uncovering a new counterfeit variety of Canada’s $2 circulation coin. The fakes mimic the genuine coin’s updated security features without the “Camel Toe” reverse design depicted on the glut of counterfeit toonies found in circulation across the country since early 2021. On the reverse of the latest fake variety, a dollar sign replaces the numeral “2” on the outer core alongside the inscription “CANADA / CANADA,” which on the genuine coin should read “CANADA / DOLLARS.”
Collector Brent Mackie, of Kitchener, Ont., who has researched the Camel Toe counterfeits and believes millions of fake examples are circulating across Canada, said the new design “would certainly appear to be a new variety of counterfeit toonie. Without more reports, I suspect that this one will be limited geographically and in terms of quantity,” Mackie added, referencing another fake toonie found in limited quantities in early 2022 in Hawkesbury, Ont. “Someone probably spent a handful of the things and they were picked out quickly.”
Mackie noted the Camel Toe toonies, 10,000 examples of which were seized last year, “continue to be a major problem with coins being found across a wide geographic area and they are plentiful.”
Earlier this year, CBSA investigators arrested Jean-François Généreux, of Sorel, Qué., after recovering more than 26,500 counterfeit toonies, the largest seizure of counterfeit coins of which the agency is aware. Généreux ordered the coins from the Chinese company Kunshang Longlife Gifts, which offered the fakes on the e-commerce site Alibaba.com, also based in China.