AMAZING COUPS BY FORGERS

Hawera Star, Volume LII, 3 September 1932, Page 11

AMAZING COUPS BY FORGERS

Tj'OßiG-EBY is achieving new importance in crime circles. This is attested by the recent settlement of the so-called Waterloo case, in which an old London corporation was deceived into printing 580,000 unauthorised .Portuguese bank-notes, and by the deception practised by the late Ivar Kreuger. Porgeries, however, are committed not only in financial circles; they have shaken the worlds of art ami literature, and even the course of history has sometimes been altered bv a well-planned forgery, says the “New York Times." One of the most skilful and daring forgeries ever perpetrated was the great Bank of England forgery executed by George and Austin 'Bidwcll, brothers, in the 18'70’s. Obtaining from a pick-pocket forged letters of credit, they used them to great advantage in Liverpool, Bordeaux, and Lyons, and then planned an attack on the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street.

Their first step was to counterfeit the blanks on which Bank of England bills of exchange were laid out. Through their tailor, the forgers obtained an account in London banks and in other reputable institutions, Austin Bidwell representing himself as a manufacturer. They manufactured false bills of exchange, using the

Finance, Art and Literature

names of prominent corporations, and soon these fraudulent papers were pouring into the Bank of England at the rate of £IO,OOO a day. But the plotters slipped upon a trifle; on two bills of 'lading, the date was omitted and the game was soon up. Another sensational forgery was that of the Parnell letters. On May 6, 1882, Lord Frederick Cavendish, just appointed Chief 'Secretary for Ireland, arid Mr Burke, an official, were stabbed to death in Dublin. Five years later a Coercion lull for Ireland was submitted to the House of Commons. The following morning a London newspaper printed in facsimile a number of letters, signed with the name of Charles Stewart Parnell, the Nationalist leader. In one was the statement, —“though I regret the accident of Lord C. Cavendish’s death, I cannot refuse to admit that Burke got no more than his desserts. ’’ The producer of the letters, a rnan called Piggot, was finally convicted of the forgery. The art forger has produced many spurious masterpieces. 'Rembrandt painted perhaps seven or eight hundred canvases, of which, it has been remarked, “ten .thousand are in America.’’ More Corots have entered the port of .New York than ever could have been painted by one man.