Counterfeit or error?

What If a bank employee was to make coins on a press or make coins in the mint with out there permission and sneek them out, would that be considered a variety or error or fake/counterfeit. I don’t think that has ever happened ever but maby 🧐

I would call it counterfeit. It happened at least twice that I know of.
Apparently around 200 years ago a few makers of Conder tokens sometimes, for their
special customers, deliberately made a 'mule' token for them - with the obverse of
one token, and a different reverse than it should be.
Then about forty years ago some employees of the Spanish mint were discovered doing
a similar thing with coins. I suspect this one (which I own) was one of them - it should
have 1980 date on the obverse, but a few thousand were made (for Espana '82 football),
before that discovery, with 1975 date instead ...

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces57136.html

Both of those different times are from memory.

I found this page, of a Conder token I own, which in the
​Comments mentions what I wrote about above ...
​https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces78373.html
​

There was a mint employee and a coin dealer busted not too long ago for sneaking out Presidential Dollars without the legend on the edge. They only got caught because of their greed, instead of sliding a handful of "errors" into the market place they went wholesale!

It's also commonly believed that Indian coins with "errors" are considered to be a perk of the job in Indian mints. I reckon India isn't the worst culprit in this regard but that's the one the news focused on.

In 2001 an employee from Canadian mint was arrested for doing it to 25 cent pieces. One sold at auction for $160. I think the story was he put the wrong planchet in the machine, retrieved them then threw them over the fence. Then he came back with a metal detector and found them. The mint has metal detectors that all employees must pass through at the end of shifts. There was another guy that stole gold from the mint, sticking it where the sun don't shine. Some people are very creative. Just search for Canadian mint employees arrested. The news stories are still out there.

I recall reading a story about a Finnish mint official who had a few coins made unofficially
and they leaked out and he was found out
and disgraced but the coins are still valued by collectors

The guy with the Presidential Dollars was sneaking them out in the oil pan of his tow truck as I recall.