SPURIOUS FLORINS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 285, 1 December 1928, Page 11

SPURIOUS FLORINS.

POLICE UNEARTH COINING

PLANT.

IN FASHIONABLE SYDNEY FLAT

CITY CHASE LED TO FIND.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, November 23.

New South Wales police were not slow to move after they had been put on the track of a coining plant by the arrest of a man in a city hotel during the week-end. In the arrested man's possession was found a quantity of spurious florins, one of which he had tried to pass over the bar of the hotel.

He was questioned by the licensee of the hotel, but became alarmed and ran out of. the building. The hotelkeeper jumped the bar and raced after him, assisted by several civilians who were also in the bar at the time the attempt was made to pass the spurious coins.

After a long chase through city streets and buildings, during which the fugitive left behind him a trail of coins, he was eventually run to earth and handed over to the police.

He was taken to the police station and searched, and then it was discovered that the suspect had a number of Spurious l coins still in his possession. Police questioned him as to his address, and also where he had come into posssesion of the coins.

The suspect refused to give the police any particulars, and supplied them with a false address. His finger-prints, however, soon put the police on his trail, and they discovered that he had been residing in one of the fashionable flat buildings of Pott's Point. j

To allay suspicion should any one of the arrested man's accomplices be on the lookout, the detectives went to the flats in motor cars, and dressed themselves in evening suits to give any watchers the impression that they were going to a dinner party in one of tho other- flats.

These precautions, however, were not necessary, because when they had gained admission to the building and smashed open the door of the man's flat they found it untenanted.

The caretaker told them that the occupant of the flat had been away for a couple of days.

In the flat, which was sumptuously furnished, they discovered an elaborately fitted-up coining plant. Scores of coins in the incomplete process of alleged counterfeiting and instruments of a remarkable variety were also discovered. The police are of the opinion that the operations were carried on by the arrested man working alone.

The flat in which the coining plant was found' is one of the most expensive in the district and has wonderful pauoramic views of the harbour and surrounding districts.

The furniture in the flat was of a most expensive sort and a grand piano was valued at £300. On this the police found several uncompleted compositions of music, which neighbours said were the work of the occupant of the flat. He had given it out that he was a music student-composer.

Coining articles found by the police ranged from a camera to a ladle. The purpose of the camera in the mind of the police is for the moment rather obscure. There were also countless pieces of wire bent at the ends, to hold the practically-completed coins, in acids. About 120 florins with their edges milled, but still in an unfinished state with fragments of the rough metal adhering to them, were found in a room. The majority of the coins had been silvered and were highly polished-

A neat little emery wheel, used for removing all traces of roughness from the completed coins, was found installed in a back closet with sound-proof doors. Other devices found by the detectives included a contraption used for imparting the milled edge to the coins, a quantity of bluestone used for the purpose of adding to the silver appearance of the florins, bottles of acid, several metal files and a big heap of chain links of a low grade of silver. This latter commodity, say the police, was the basis of the coins which were formed from moulds dated 1925, 1926 and 1927.

In the kitchen was a kitchen griiler, which has been used as a melting pot for the metal,- an iron ladle and a big collection of , moulds. Although many of the coins had not been completed, they were adjudged by the police as excellent replicas of the genuine coinage. They rang true and except for a

slight difference in weight and density were practically indistinguishable.

The discovery of the coining plant was the third big coup brought off by police in recent months. Strangely enough all the men who have been arrested in the various police raids of late have specialised in the making of two-shilling pieces. One man arrested after a chase at Burwood some months ago, admitted that he used to make the coins at a coining den in the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria. Another of the men arrested a few weeks later had been passing the spurious coins throughout the suburbs for months by buying papers for a few pence and tendering a two-shilling piece in payment each time. His movements aroused suspicion and police followed him for three days from suburb to suburb until they finally had enough evidence collected against him to make an arrest. He admitted that his whole family were engaged in the coining business and led the police to a coining plant at Hurstville in the Illawarra district.

The man arrested after the chase from the city hotel bar on Friday last was charged with attempting to pass spurious coins and also with counterfeiting.