Big Money, Dirty Money

There is a reason why there is no note bigger than fifty pounds or one hundred dollars. But the withdrawal of the five hundred euro note, though welcome in itself, scarcely begins to address the real problem. That problem is the euro, plain and simple.

Drug-traffickers now prefer the euro to the dollar. That was always going to happen. The wildest dream of every drug-trafficker, gun-runner and pimp was once a borderless Europe with a single currency. Now, that dream has very largely come true.

Time was when, if you turned up in Finland with a suitcase full of escudos, then you had to explain when and why you had been in Portugal. But there is no such obstacle with the euro.