Coinage Frauds

Hastings Standard, Volume X, Issue 5344, 3 November 1906, Page 3

Coinage Frauds

From first to last the police arrested nearly a hundred people iu connection with the frauds in Paris, and detectives were busily engaged in hunting down tho outside agents of the "firm " at Trouvillc, Dieppe, Wimmereaux and other French seaside resorts, which have been particularly favoured by the false coin distributors. Great daring was shown by tho members of the " firm " in working off the coins. One of them was in the habit of selling , postcards near the Madeleine, and it is now certain that he was stationed there in order to supply customers with packets of the counterfeit money. During carnival time a rich harvest was reaped. The "firm" had several kiosks on the boulevards, ostensibly to sell confetti and nicknacks, but in reality to unload the ten and twenty-franc pieces. These kiosks f supplied the coins in wholesale quantities under , the very noses of the police. In the Luxembourg Gardens the gang held a sort of bourse, where buying and selling took place almost as freely as in the case of legitimate scrip on a stock exchange. The ruling market price for ten-franc pieces was 2% francs, but for quantities of a thousand and upwards the rate went down to 1 franc 25 cents. The task of entrapping the unfortunate students was the work of months. The "firm" began by sending its agents into the Latin quarter armed with plenty of genuine cash. They frequented students' reunions, lent the impecunious money and passed as "jolly good fellows. One of them gave himself out as a wealthy man, who had himself been a student, and who was anxious to devote his money to the promotion of the moral and material well-being of hu successors. He founded a club, to which all were welcome, and where j frequent meetings were held to \ discuss philosophy, literature and I art. It proved a dangerous rival io the cafes, for there were music | and refreshments, and nothing to pay. Then came the clay when the agent began to distribute false coins. Some of the prisoners assert that the bad money was in the first instance advanced as a loan, and that they were i unaware it was spurious. It passed, and when next day they applied for financial assistance their friend camo out in his true colours and sold them packets of the false coin. Some hesitated and drew back, others took the plunge, and, once committed, threw all scruples to the wind.