note – “hands off my cash ”. Law enforcement authorities are less convinced, amid a steady stream of reports of suspicious bundles of cash. In one case that has caught the attention of police, two men walked into a bank and tried to deposit €200,000 of torn and muddy €500 notes. In the same week, €1.3m in €500 notes was found stuffed in the false bottom of suitcase. But, a suspicion of criminality is not enough to keep people in custody. “Our frustration from a law enforcement perspective is that, in many jurisdictions, it is impossible to provide sufficient evidence to satisfy judicial authorities of a link between suspicious cash detections and criminality,” says Jennifer MacLeod, a specialist in Europol’s financial intelligence group. “The search for these links is complicated further through time constraints and fragmented cooperation and information exchange.” The agency would like to see central banks take more responsibility for the “striking anomalies” in the use of €500 notes. Luxembourg, for example, issued more than twice its annual GDP in banknotes in 2013 alone, despite being one of the most cash-averse countries in Europe. Europol asked Luxembourg’s central bank to explain. “The reply we had from Luxembourg is that they simply issue the notes requested and have no explanation for the reasons behind the demand,” MacLeod says.