A Bank Note Swindle.

Auckland Star, Volume XIX, Issue 23, 28 January 1888, Page 4 (Supplement)

A Bank Note Swindle.

The Federal Bank officials, at the head office in Collins-street, Melbourne, the other day received from another bank in the ordinary transaction of business a Federal Bank note for liquidation, which purported to be for the amount of £50. On examination it was discovered that this note was in reality a £20 note, skilfully metamorphosed with the object of enhancing its value by £30. At each of the top corners the figures £20 are pasted over by two corners of £50 notes, and in the body of the note the word " Twenty " is also pasted over with the word " Fifty " cut from the body of a £50 note, but on the back the word " Twenty " remains unobliterafced. The Federal Bank refused to recognise the note as having a value of more than £20, and notified the exchanging bank of the fact. Amongst the notes in hand at the Federal Bank are two £50 notes, from one of which the right-hand corner bearing the figures " £50 " has been removed, and from the other the left-hand corner so that neither note is destroyed, and yet the manipulator, who is supposed to have been the person who dressed up the £20 note in question, had all the material required to alter the character of the note. From one of the two notes referred to the word " Fifty " in the body of the note has been cut out, the excision being neatly covered with a New South Wales receipt stamp. The theory is that the perpetrator of this ingenious device *ot his spurious £59-nete into circulation amongst the general public somewhere in New South Wales, ana that the subsequent holder eventually saved himself from loss by passing it on an unsuspecting bank. The accepting bank will therefore lose the £30 difference. •