An engraver fired by Chile's mint for an error that led to the release of 1.5 million coins featuring the country of “CHIIE” said Friday that his bosses deliberately covered up the mistake. The error showed up on Chilean 50-peso pieces for the year 2009. Engraver Pedro Urzua Lizana said he unknowingly left off the bottom part of the letter “l” when, in December 2008, he was hurriedly fixing a minor deformity in the original mold for making the dies to stamp out the coin. The coins were released to the public last year but no one at the mint, including himself, knew about the error until a coin collector called in October to point it out, he said. The Central Bank, which issues the coins, did not learn of the error until it was reported by the newspaper El Mercurio in December, the same month that Urzua was fired, the engraver said. The head of his department was fired in January.
