Baffled German authorities are investigating why hundreds of euro bills have mysteriously disintegrated in recent months, the government and the Bundesbank said Thursday.

An Interior Ministry spokesman said state police in Berlin and the southwestern state of Rhineland-Palatinate have opened an investigation after about 1,000 bills self-destructed.

"This is unprecedented," a spokeswoman for the central bank said.

The case surfaced in June in Berlin when a €20 bill crumbled on contact. Police first thought it was a fluke, but the number of "broken notes," as investigators have dubbed them, continued to rise in August.

The daily newspaper Bild, which splashed the headline "Acid attack on our money!" on its front page, reported that chemists believed that the bills might have been sprinkled with a sulfate salt that became sulfuric acid when it came into contact with moisture, like hand perspiration. The bills then gradually disintegrate.

A Berlin police spokesman confirmed that laboratory analysis of the bills had identified traces of sulfuric acid, which is often found in industrial cleaning fluid.

But authorities are stumped as to how it could have ended up on the bank notes.

"To date we do not have any indication that a crime has been committed," the spokesman said, adding that it was possible that an accident led to the contamination of the bills.

The Interior Ministry spokesman said it appeared Germany was the only country whose bills were affected.

The European Central Bank president, Jean-Claude Trichet, said it was possible the bills were stolen during a cash shipment and that the hijackers had used chemicals to remove anti-theft coloration.

But he added that the ECB had no direct involvement in the case and that German authorities were handling the investigation.

The Bundesbank ruled out a printing or paper defect. Serial numbers confirm the bills were produced by the Federal Printing Press and another company based in the southern city of Munich used by the central bank. (Agence France-Presse)

Original Source