A Gang of Forgers.

Bush Advocate, Volume XI, Issue 869, 9 December 1893, Page 5

A Gang of Forgers.

For some time past the deteotive force both of the Criminal Investigation department and the City Police has been occupied with the closest investigation of some exceedingly olever Bank of England note forgeries. The spurious notes j are said to bo coming from Chicago, where the Exhibition affords special facilities for patting them in circulation. However that may be, the authorities agree that they are the most remarkable productions in imitation of the real thing which have ever come under the notice of the authorities in London, and there is no doubt that all that have reached London up to the present have emanated in the first place from some part of the United States. Under the circumstances, therefore it is little to be ' wondered that tbe governors of the variouß f London banks and the police of the metropo- t lis should receive with alarm the news that I a notorious and particularly smart gang of J American forgers are now making their way f to England. t These men are well known to tho police £ on both sides of the Atlantic, and it is t beyond question that they were responsible 1 for a number of extensive cheque forgeries c which were perpetrated in London in the !J autumn of 1891. Their ramifications are so r complete, however, that up to the present t there has twen no possibility of laying handß jj on them with any likelihood of obtaining t sufficient direct evidence to ensure a con- v victton. *■ i Two years ago the modus operand! was as p follows : — Betting accounts for lsrgcr and ( smaller amounts were opened with some of s tho mora prosperous of the Boulogne book- ? makers. Heady money was of course always t sent by the conspirators, and at the end ' of a certain period a settlement was como ! to by the layer of the odds on the other side ( of tho Channel sendinsr over the balance due 1 to the client in London. Most of the big ] bookmakers bank in London for the con- | venionco of their English clienta, and these ' balances were usually sent by cheque on a London bank. In one case the cheque so sent was for LlO Is Bd, and this amount when presented at the bank on which it was drawn had been altered to L2S3B 0s 4a. So cleverly hadthe alteration been made that tbe fraud waß not disoovered until the cheque was returned to the bookmaker. — "Westminster Gazette."