SPURIOUS £10 NOTES

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVIII, Issue 89, 17 April 1914, Page 7

SPURIOUS £10 NOTES

BOGUES' ASTOUNDING COUP

OVER SIXTY FOISTED ON TO

SHOPKEEPERS

DEEP AND CLEV Ell PLAN

AUCKLAND, April 15. "When the various banks in the city for business this morning and tradespeople began to . pay in money it was discovered that a swindle of considerable dimensions had been perpetrated during the holidays. The teller at the suburban branch of the Bank of New Zealand disCGvered in a pay-in a very good counterfeit £10 Bank of New Zealand note. Other banks in the city were ■at once warned, but already a number -of the notes had been accepted by tollers. From then -on bank tellers all over the city were kept busy explaining to angry .shopkeepers that the £10 notes which they wished to pay in were forgeries, and numerous customers in shops where the bad news had been received, and who tendered "tenners" were subjected to embarrassing cross-examination. To-night the police have received information that over' sixty counterfeits have been discovered, and there is little dmibt that many more are ia circulation. . ..

v Tile counterfeiters laid their plans ■■.veil., The notes were put into circulation, on Saturday, when it :was. known that three days must elapse' before the banks open, and the fraud could be. detected. The modus operandi was simple. On Saturday right, for instance, a man went along the Kairangahape Road, entered every shop that was open, and. purchased something wherever he could get change' for his £10 notes. His purchases seldom ran to more than a few shillings, but he bought all sorts of -things-^ohbcolates and, cycle accessories, fruit and ladies' stockings, bottles' of brandy,' and shaving soap, and in every case got .genuine currency for liis spurious notes. The police, of course, are hard on the track of at least one individual who has been described by scores of revengeful shopkeepers, but the swindlers have had three clear days' .start, and- persons of their apparent | ingenuity will carefully cover their ] tracks. It is thought.-likely that j forged notes were also put into cir-j culation through the tbtalisator at Ellerslie on Saturday and Monday. I If this is the case they have by this time ad doubt T^een distributed all over the province. -~'.. Banking officials are of opinion that the: forgery is the cleverest thing of ~ili& kind ever seen in Auckland, aaid ■add that it is the most widely- worked swindle of the kind yet perpetrated in the city. The notes ail bear the date October 1, 1913, and the number 169948, and are evidently the work of a skilled photographer and lithographer. tVhen carefully compared ivith genuine' notes, however, the forgery is easily seen, the shade of the filigree border being brown instead of black, and details in the note are blurred instead of being black and «harp, and the mountain, which shows as an. intermediajfee tone in the picture on the • left-hand side, is completely missing from the forgery. The printing on the back, which should bs a mass of tens in-the smallest type, is simply a blur. The black •watermark is also missing from the paper, but the latter approaches very nearly to1, the quality of tthe genuine ; if/*The: left side of "the mote shows the perforation mark in the ordinary way.