DARING COUP.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIV, Issue 1039, 11 June 1924, Page 11

DARING COUP.

GENERAL POST OFFICE CHEQUE FOR £BOO. HOW IT WAS WORKED. SYDNEY, May 24. The robbery of £BOO by a forged cheque from tho G.P.O. yesterday Is one of the most daring coups ever j brought off in Sydney. The forger had j only half an hour to put the scheme • through. And sveiy minute of tho | time he was waiting at the bank to | cash the cheque lie was in danger of be- l ing discovered and arrested. ! The cheque that was cashed was one for £BOO for salaries for the men in the engineers' branch of the | G.P.O. With dozens of other salary cheques made out, and signed for various other departments, it was in a drawer in the cashier's department yesterday morning, waiting to be handed to the paymaster of the engineers' branch, Mr Mortimer. From a quarter to 10 onwards these cheques were being handed out to the paying officers of the various departments. There was a rush—there is always a rush when these cheques are being allotted on Friday morning—and this particular one was given to somebody— not to Mr Mortimer— who represented himself as the paying officer for the engineers' branch. Though Mr Mortimer was the officer who usually collected the cheque from the cashier's department, other officers were often sent for it, and in the bustle the clerk, who handed it over did not take particular notice of the man who collected it. Exactly what time it was handed over is not clear. It was distributee! with a whole batch of others to men ; from other departments, and might have got into the hands of the forger at any time between a quarter to 10 and a quarter past. All that is known is that about 10.15 tho genuine paying officer from the engineer's branch (Mr Mortimer) ar rived at the cashiers' department for his cheque, and discovered that it had been handed to somebody else. RISKY UNDERTAKING. In the meantime, the cheque had been cashed at tho Commonwealth | Bank. The paying teller could not remember the man wiio cashed it, but there was a crowd of others waiting for their money atthat time, and at least one of them, it is thought, will be able to identify tho man. It can be easily seen from this how riskythe undertaking was. The genuine payingofficer from the engineer's branch might have come for his cheque at any time—he might have come for it only half a minute after it had been handed out to the thief. The alarm would have been raised immediately, and the culprit caught red-handed at the bank. An examination of the cheque this morning showed that the signature of the cashier, Mr W. Wareham, making it an open cheque had been forged. It looked like a tracing. This, of course, was on the back of the cheque, and had been written by the forger after he had collected it. He then had to take it to the accounts branch to get a second signature, that of Mr Lister. And Mr Lister, seeing the cashier's signature, apparently a genuine oneit deceived him completely—added his own name without question. All the thief bad to do then was to make it payable to somebody—any old name—and cash it. He made it payable to A. Jones, and, representing himself as A. Jones at the bank, got the money. Of course, there is no A. Jones in the department. The whole of tho circumstances indicate that the scheme was worked by somebody with an intimate knowledge of the system. If there was only one man in it, it is stated that he must have been an employee in the G.P.O. But the more likely theory is that it was carried out by two men—one daring spirit outside, and an accomplice inside.

And even if there were two, and the affair was most carefully planned, the risk was tremendous. The real paying officer to whom the cheque should have been given was duo at any minute of the half hour in which the forger had to get the cheque, forgo the cashier's signature, get it signed at the accounts branch, fill in the payee, present it to the bank, and wait for the money. Had Mr Mortimer appeared five minutes before he actually did the whole scheme would have been discovered, and at least one man would have been arrested.

Asked for his version of the story, the teller at the Commonwealth Bank, who cashed the forged cheque, said that he was not at liberty to say anything. The accountant (Mr Knight), however, declared that as far as the bank was concerned there was absolutely no reason why the teller should have suspected any impropriety about the cheque. It was on a Friday morning, shortly after the bank opened, when it was not uncommon for the teller to cash departmental cheques for large amounts.