Forgery ring has ‘earned’ $6M

Press, 15 January 1982, Page 2

Forgery ring has ‘earned’ $6M

PA Auckland A Thailand-based forgery, ring detected in Aubkland this week had recently worked in Australia, Korea, Japan, and Singapore, the police have been told. International police inquiries have established that members of the sophisticated ring worked in Perth and Singapore last November, after duping banks in Seoul and Tokyo the previous month. Auckland fraud ..squad detectives were yesterday expecting further information on the forgery ring from Frankfurt and Hong Kong, where a private investigation firm has been trying to crack the ring for two years. Three Thai men arrested in Auckland last Monday after identical fra,uds in the city prompted < (the international inquiries.'. Only two arrests, in Hong Kong last November, had been previously linked to the ring, which has “earned” $6.71 million throughout the world since 1979. Detective Inspector I. F. Hastings, head of the fraud squad, said that the Auckland police had sent fingerprints and photographs of the three arrested men to Thailand to establish their identity. The men, who were using false passports and identification, are expected to appear under different names when they reappear in the District .Court at Auckland on Tuesday. The police will then lay further fraud charges relating to several city banks said to have paid out more than $30,000 for forged travellers’ cheques drawn on a Frankfurt bank branch.