5000 Escudos

Cabo Verde's 5000 Escudos was the highest denomination in circulation at the time of issue, introduced partly to address the practical inconvenience of large cash transactions in an economy still heavily reliant on remittances from the diaspora — particularly from Portuguese-based Cape Verdean communities. Thomas De La Rue handled the printing, as they had for much of the series, maintaining consistent security specifications across the island nation's small but carefully managed currency program.

The escudo was pegged to the Portuguese escudo in 1998, then automatically transitioned to a euro peg when Portugal adopted the single currency, giving this 2000-dated note a fixed exchange anchor from the moment it was printed.