ROME -- An Italian official scoffed at attempts to produce fake euro notes, but a raid this week near Rome and a forger's published warning suggest that crooks could have the last laugh.

"Until now the only thing we have found are photocopies that make you want to laugh," AFP quoted Antonini, director of the Italian anti-forgery office known as UCAMP, as saying.

Speaking in his office at the Finance Ministry here, Antonini insists that for now, euro banknotes have given counterfeiters plenty of headaches.

"Technically, the euro is hard to falsify," he said, adding that Italians had won a round from the days when easily-faked 10,000- and 50,000-lire notes -- worth five and 25 euros (4.4 and 21.9 dollars) circulated throughout the country.

But his confidence comes against the backdrop of an arrest on Tuesday near Rome of a counterfeiter along with 25,000 euros in high-quality forged notes.

"Up to now, the fake notes found in Italy have been fairly poor quality. But in this case, the notes are high-quality and it's worrying," said Colonel Carlo Mori, head of the anti-counterfeit unit of Italy's Carabinieri police.

The fake notes had been made with a computer, a scanner and a sophisticated inkjet printer, he said.

The money, in denominations of 50 and 200 euros, were "the first fake euros worthy of the name," according to Mori.

The notes were of sufficiently high quality to be passed off straight away, but may have been on their way to other forgers for further refinement, he said.

In late January, an unidentified counterfeiter told the Italian daily **** La Repubblica **** he would eventually have the solution to his biggest obstacle -- security holograms embedded in each note.

"By June 2003, we will have the laser for holograms, and the counterfeits will be excellent," the forger forecast.

To date, 20 cases of attempted forgery have been discovered in Italy since the launch on January 1 of euro cash, mostly in border regions near Trieste and Venice.

The bills, however, were barely worthy of being sent to the bank of Italy for registration.

But Antonini, while insisting that the counterfeiter's task was a tough one, admitted that "nothing is impossible".

"The problem is not with amateur gangs. The risk, if ever there is one, is that large international organizations may decide to produce fake euros."

But he nonetheless dismissed the notion that organized crime syndicates would bother with euro counterfeiting, saying: "Prostitution would be more profitable."

It might also present less of a risk, since Italy has installed a new alert system for fake banknotes that connects 24,000 banks, 14,000 police stations, and 8,000 foreign exchange bureaus.

All are instructed to alert UCAMP of any suspicious notes, even before they have been examined by experts.

Any high-quality forgeries not already identified are to be shipped to the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, for banknotes, or to the French Mint in Pessac, southern France for coins.

The anonymous forger told **** La Repubblica **** that for now, two-euro coins were the most likely to be copied because they are "easily spread and not subject to electronic controls".

Meanwhile, Italian investigators are looking into the discovery of defective, but genuine, one euro-cent coins in the north of the country.

They believe that the coins may be the result of a plan by someone at the National Mint to create collector's items for the numismatic market.

The market value of the defective coins has reached almost 2,600 euros, or nearly 260,000 times their face value.