BANK SWINDLES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 77, 31 March 1928, Page 7 (Supplement)

BANK SWINDLES.

trials of a cashier. V7AYB op the forger. SECRET MARKS OF NOTES. IBj A LONDON" BANK CASHIER.)

Some people say there is no romance in a. London bank. Those people are wrong. The bank officer's life holds quite #g niTich romance as is good for him. Sometimes more. Take, for example, the continuous war waged by the banks against the modern brigands of London— the crooks, forgers and cheque swindlers. London swarms with crooks, and they have becomo much more skilful at their work during the last twenty years. They ncem to pur.snc their business in the west end of London in preference to the city. Pull Mall, with its remarkable array of banks of world-wide character is a favourite haunt of the smooth young "crooks" with polished manners and daring swindlers of every grade. Their choice of this region is easy to underitgnd. Every other building is a travel bureau, a bank, or a shipping office. .Americans and rich v isitors from all over tha world wander about here with thick wads of bank notes. Nature, as anyone in close touch with her methods would guess, does not produce simple colonials ami Americans with fat banking accounts without also producing predatory individuals to devour them, and thus we discover that the erooks are very strongly represented in this west-end banking region.

Tricks of the Forger. A cashier in a London bank must never drop his alertness for a Bccond. Every trick and dodgo it is possible to think

of is tried out on him by our friend the "crook." Forged cheques are the most usual instruments used by the crook, and they can be divided into many kinds. Tlie most dangerous to the bank cashier is the genuine cheque which has been stolen from a letter box and raised in amount; say a cheque for £.3 altered to fuO. The forger takes the crossing out with acid, cleverly making an altera tion in the warding" and figures, and UTt/h Ui runner to got it cashed over the counter. The reader will very properly question why the cashier does not "spot" the alterations. This is almost impossible, because when the forger has faked the words and figures, he proceeds to go over all the writing on the cheque with dead black ink. The date, wording, signature, and figures are all ingeniously i retraced with a very fine pen, and executed with such delicacy that after the ink is dry, all alterations are invisible. A Scotland Yard officer said to me, "Beware of the cheque drawn in dead black ink, for that is the forger's trade mark." Nearly all the faked cheques which I have inspected in tlie "Yard"! museum are in the same tell-tale ebony j handwriting.

The cheque which is a forgery throughoat is the next most dangerous trap for the cashier, and a passable imitation stands a good chance of being paid. If the cashier is "rushed" by a crowd Waiting at his counter and the money is "good" in the account, the "crook" is likely to be lucky. The cashier has passed thousands of cheques that day and one "dud," happens along. It is a perfect forgery, is correctly drawn, and tlie drawer has the funds to meet it. That's enough for any cashier to say grace over! How It la Done. How does the forger obtain the information to enable him to forge and utter his cheque I An easy matter enough. Most of the "foreign banks" in the West End have their traveller's waiting rooms where newspapers, writing paper and other requisites are provided for their customers. In the summer months these rooms are always crowded with Americans and other visitors. It is impossible to question all who use a bank waitingroom, and any swindler with a polished man-of-affairs air has only to spend an hour in such a place to pick up enough information to keep him busy plundering suckers" for a month. He sees the customers make out their cheques, draw their money, and obligingly return and count it for his benefit. He overhears them telling each other their addresses at London hotels; where they will spend their evenings, and the sops at which they are making purchases. All very useful information. Then our friend the "crook" casually picks up a new piece of blotting paper, which has just been used by an account holder to blot his cheque, and walks out. The impression on the blotting paper supplies him with a perfect model to work on, and if he has been lucky enough to obtain a blank cheque from the bank, his task of forging is not T ery difficult. The forger does not turn JJP to cash the cheque, but gives it to an hotel porter or some tradesman to cash for him. He follows at a discreet distance and waits outside the bank or P«rs through the glass door. He can quickly decide if the cashier is paying or not; and is able to act accordingly.

Spurious Notes. The spurious bank notes prepared for ♦he trapping of the unwary bank cashier •re great in number and extensive in variety. A certain clever French trickier is well known to most of the London banjcs; he carries a stock of 100 franc notes which are very creditable forgeries by photogravure. With every "dud" note he places two or three good ones, and obtains English money in exchange for them. The English money is used to purchase more genuine franc notes for "decoy ducks," and thus he 'nerrliy proceeds to play Midas amongst the bank clerks. The 1000-dollar American bank note is frequently forged. The u »ual test for the genuineness is the delicate "silk threads" which are woven '•'to the paper. Other dud U.S.A. 1000dollar and 500-dollar notes are made by faking and partly reprinting genuine 100dollar and 50-do'llar notes.

It is a curious thing that no passable forgeries of the Bank of England notes ® v er get into circulation. There is a brisk crispness about the p&per on which |hey are printed that seems to defy the 'orger. It is not the print which baffles the maker of spurious notes; it is the P*per. Most cashiers tell a good note by the "feel" of it. There are several secret ®*rks of the Bank of England notes. In the £5 note the "i" in the word "live" has a white nick running into the "lack background; it is just to be discovered with the naked eye, but it is •Iwayg there. In the £10 note the "e" of the "ten" has a similar nick. Nine people out of ten could not say how the word company" on our bunk notes is written. Ijook at a noti; and you will read the Gov.r and Compa. of the Bank

of England » "Compa." is the shortening hLi? 6 W °i d used h ? the Lombardy bankers. Two secret marks are contained these words—a three-cornered dot under the 'a" of "Compa." and a curious little cleft in the "f" of "of." In the flo note it will be noticed that «f» re ?u an 7" W . ith a Ioo P ed tail and with a cleft in the same sentence. Most of the secrets about the "paper" of the notes are hidden in the Bank of England archives. Many years ago the Bank and iBBUed two notes for tiuo.ooo each, and two for £50,000. 1 was told by an aged cashier of a famous private bank that he remembered a butcher who had amassed an immense fortune walking into his bank with one of these £50,000 notes, asking the loan of £5000, and wishing to deposit the big note as security in the banker's hands, saying that he had kept it for years. The £5000 were at once handed over, but the cashier hinted at the same time to the butcher the folly of hoarding such a sum and losing the interest. "Werry true, sir," replied the butcher, "but I likes the look on't so wery well that I keeps t'other one of the same kind at home."