CRIME COMBINES

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 April 1935, Page 9

CRIME COMBINES

I HEADQUARTERS STAFF According to the chiefs of the Surete Nutionale (French Scotland Yard), the internationalisation of the forces of crime has been completed in several directions. And these forces are ' now operating simultaneously in the principal European and American ; countries under the direction of a gen- . eral staff on which the best brains lin the crook world have , been mobilise led. In Europe this internationalisation, it is stated, is most. marked among the confidence tricksters. The centre- of this brunch of crime has now passed under the direction of an organisation with a. movable G.H.Q.. which may be Paris to-day, Berlin the next day aud London the day afterward, according as the exigencies of the campaign or the pressure of the police dictates. Always, however; there is tho same central control, and the little men who refuse to stand in with the big combine are gradually being driven out of the business. If they don’t take a hint, they afterwards fall into the hands of the police, without being able to say who has given them away. Another direction, it is officially stated, in which internationalisation has developed enormously is that of the wholesale forgery of banknotes and share certificates and the counterfeiting of silver coinages. This is now a monopoly of a gang organised and controlled in much the same way as the confidence tricksters. There are factories belonging to the gang in England, France, Germany and Italy, where, with the aid of the most up-to-date processes, output is steadily increasing. Bogus English notes or share certificates are never manufactured in England. They are. made abroad and as far as possible are “placed” abroad, where forgeries are less likely to be detected than at home. On the other hand, the English factory turns out foreign notes and certificates, and these are disposed of in England. At the present day French silver coins are being manufactured by the hundred thousand in England and put into circulation through the medium of English tourists making for the Continent, who are trapped ’ into accepting the offer of change at generous exchange rates from gangsters they meet in the trains, in hotels and other In the same way English silvei* coins made in France are being unloaded on French tourists coming to England in increasing numbers. The same internationalisation is noted in other directions. ' |