Nine Crimes

Mutilation, alteration or defacement of currency notes is an offence under the Central Bank of Sri Lanka Act No.16 of 2023 and is punishable by imprisonment or a fine or both. Section 28 of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1990 makes it an offence to wilfully deface, disfigure, or mutilate any bank note in New Zealand. The penalty is a fine of up to NZ$1,000. In China, Article 19 of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on The People’s Bank of China prohibits the alteration of notes and coins of renminbi. In the United States, burning banknotes is prohibited under 18 U.S.C. § 333. In the UK, under Section 10 of the Coinage Act 1971 "No person shall, except under the authority of a licence granted by the Treasury, melt down or break up any metal coin which is for the time being current in the United Kingdom. The European Union defines "falsifying or fraudulently altering money in any way" as a crime. In Australia, Section 16 of the Crimes (Currency) Act 1981 prohibits deliberate damage and destruction of money without a relevant legal permit. According to this law, even writing words on a banknote can be punished. In Indonesia defacing the rupiah is a crime under a 2011 law for which the prison sentence can be as much as five years. In Kenya any person who wilfully and without authority defaces, tears, cuts or mutilates any currency note shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or to a fine not exceeding two thousand shillings or both. This piece mocks the monetary laws of nation states.