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European Central Mint

The mintmaster of European Central Mint was Patrick Onel who has been a well-known expert in the minting industry for several decades. In 2008 he founded the Dutch company AmsterdamGold together with Willem Middelkoop, a well-known economist and former stock market commentator for a Dutch TV channel. Within a few years the annual revenue of the company was over 100 million euros. In 2011 the company was sold to an investment fund and Patrick received 1 million euros. At the same time he was also director of Inea, a company that bought, repaired and sold coin minting machinery. During the time that the machines were waiting for someone to buy them, Inea used to produce tokens and blanks with them. The company also owned patents on coin minting machinery of the Swiss brand Güdel.

In 2011 the preparations started for the opening of European Central Mint. The mint was registered at several places in the Netherlands including the address of Patrick’s company Inea. It began production operations that same year. In 2012 ECM secured a contract with the Central Bank of Suriname for the production of silver and gold bullion coins and bars and collectors coins. It was planned that the collectors coins were going to be the main source of income, these were going to be issued to commemorate the flora and fauna of Suriname as well as special events. The first bullion coin was handed to Gillmore Hoefdraad, Governor of the Central Bank of Suriname, on the World Money Fair 2012 in attendance of former Dutch minister Willem Vermeend and a delegation from the Russian Gazprombank.

ECM’s main supplier was Schöne Precious Metals based in Amsterdam. The mint inter alia dealt with pension funds for the bullion and with other European mints for the blanks they produced. It produced blanks for 1 and 2 euro cent coins (but possibly also for other euro denominations), tokens, silver bars and silver medals. ECM was capable of producing 5.5 million coins per day.

The company was featured on several Dutch TV and radio programs. Early 2013 the mint opened a ‘flagship-store’ in Berlin which was opened to deliver gold to banks in Mid and Eastern Europe and Asia. Although the store was fully equipped, not much has ever happened there although ECM claimed the store had an annual revenue of 67 million euros. ECM also claimed it opened a store in Kiev although no evidence has ever been found for that. Furthermore Onel was planning to set up a global auction site for gold and silver coins in cooperation with the Royal Canadian Mint, the Perth Mint and the South African Mint. He also wanted to start an academy for coin designers in cooperation with the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam and the Vakschool Schoonhoven.

In September 2013, shortly before the mint was raided, the governor of the Central Bank of Suriname ordered their legal counsel to terminate the agreement with ECM as it had not been following through on what had been agreed upon.