I find it astonishing that staff would do such things - can it be due to a general dumbing down of skills, lack of apprenticeship or whaetever, that results in employees not understanding the seriousness of their actions?

I had it with programmers who used to be blase about miscalculations of interest charges on credit cards (its OK, when people phone in just say sorry) - until I threatened to miscalculate their wages so they couldn't pay their mortgages (but it was OK, I'd just say sorry).

I find a resurgence in blase attitude from the outtaskers in India.

Hmmm.  The use of the word 'deliberately' and bringing in the SFO is a clear sign that there may be a lot more to this than careless or negligent staff.  I have seen another quote attributed to Brookes which is below:

‘The company reiterates that it has not found anything to suggest that either the physical security or the security features in the paper have been compromised and that the matters uncovered relate only to the certification of paper specifications at the relevant facility.'

Wonder which country or countries the banknotes in question were for?  Will this make life easier for banknote counterfeiters?  It will interesting to see what the SFO find..............

Lachlan, De la Rue's not commenting on which countries are affected but India is being touted and the FT says the RBI has already sent a delegation over to the UK to discuss the issue.

Thanks Matt....and I've just noted that the FT also mentions that the production problems have affected one client in South America (according to their source).