Counterfeiter remanded

Press, 20 December 1978, Page 2

Counterfeiter remanded

PA Auckland A member of an international counterfeiting gang was remanded to the Supreme Court for sentence yesterday after Mts G. C. P. A. Wallace, S.M., declined jurisdiction.

Mohammad Miskin Khan, aged 21, had earlier admitted passing $31,640 in forged notes to New Zealand banks and shops. He was convicted on 36 charges of causing the banks and shops to act upon the forged notes as if they were genuine, four of possessing forged United States dollars,

land one of attempting to take $17,000 out of New Zealand without the consent of the Reserve Bank.

Counsel (Mr A. W. Grove) submitted that the penalties within the Magistrate’s jurisdiction would be sufficient for the offences.

“Khan was brought up in Pakistan in conditions of poverty we can only imagine,” he said. In Hong Kong, unemployed and homeless Khan met a man who blackmailed him. “This man gave him virtually nothing for the activities he engaged in, save his keep,” he said. Mr Grove said the man

was a New Zealander, which accounted for the fact that the offences were committed here.

“Khan was purely a pawn, a minion doing the work for the person really, responsible, who did not want to run the risk of doing it himself.”

Imprisonment in New Zealand would be traumatic for. Khan, without his friends or family to visit him. At the end of his term he faced deportation to Pakistan.

The Magistrate said that in view of the number and nature of the charges she must decline jurisdiction.