Counterfeiting has been around for millennia. It is carried out by various social groups at various stages in economic turnover, but always for one purpose - financial gain. The scale of the crime cannot be precisely determined due to the constant evolution of forgery methods, which often perfectly reflect the original. The main research problem was formulated as a question: what is the level of society's awareness of the problem of counterfeiting money? Due to the above, the main goal of the research was to determine the level of this awareness. At the initial stage of the research, a research hypothesis was adopted in the form of the assumption that most cash circulation participants do not check the authenticity of the received banknotes, which makes it easier for criminals to act. A number of research methods, both theoretical and empirical, were used to answer the question constituting the main research problem and to verify the adopted hypothesis. Analysis and synthesis were used to determine the current state of knowledge in the field of counterfeiting methods of counterfeiting money used by the issuer of security features on banknotes and the system for combating crime related to counterfeiting of means of payment Empirical research was carried out using the judgments and opinions method, using a research tool - a survey questionnaire.