Index

From the Guardian newspaper:

7: Pensioner's currency rivals euro

Rory Carroll in Rome Tuesday September 5, 2000

The euro is about to be challenged by an Italian pensioner who has won a legal battle to circulate his own currency, the simec.

Giacinto Auriti, 77, has persuaded neighbours in Guardiagrele village to dump the Italian lira and now he wants the whole euro-zone to follow suit.

The simec is credited with a local boom which has caught the imagination of the Northern League, a northern Italian nationalist political party.

Police confiscated the currency last month after complaints from shopkeepers, but a court has cleared Mr Auriti of fraud and abuse of the financial system, allowing his experiment to resume.

The retired college professor recently persuaded neighbours and more than 40 retailers to sign up by offering an unbeatable deal. The simec was pegged to equal the lira, but he handed over twice as many simecs for every lira received.

Residents in Guardiagrele, deep in Abruzzo countryside, have queued up to swap currencies and double their spending power.

Retailers who accept simecs benefit from the spending splurge and then visit Mr Auriti to convert the simecs back into lire. The shopkeepers who lost business by opting out complained to police.

The currency has generated an estimated £1.7m in turnover and Mr Auriti reckons it will go national and then international. "I understand that a lot of people believe I'm crazy but I have my own theory to prove," he said.

Crazy was an understatement, said tax police investigators, after discovering his secret: the simec was being funded from his savings. "We are at a complete loss on how to deal with this case because the currency is not counterfeit and Mr Auriti, far from making money, is losing his considerable family fortune," said Colonel Sante Mappa.

Mr Auriti insisted the simec was rooted in economic sense. A feud with Italy's central bank partly motivated his initiative.

"Money belongs to citizens because they are the ones who are producing consumer goods in the first place," he said.

An MP for the Northern League, Mario Borghezio, said the party was "very interested" in replicating Guardiagrele's monetary policy.