COIN FACTORY IN GAOL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13722, 11 April 1908, Page 2 (Supplement)

COIN FACTORY IN GAOL.

DISCOVERY IN A GERMAN PRISON. Berlin, February 24. —Extraordinary proceedings in the gaol at Rendsburg, an important town in Schleswig-Holstein, have just come to light, mainly owing to the cleverness of a police detective named Schneider, who was in gaol disguised as a prisoner, ■ lb was discovered (hat an active industry in the way of false coining was being carried on with the connivance of one of the chief warders. For some time past the police of Rendsburg had noticed that in their town a large number of five-mark pieces were being put in circulation. They were all impressed with the arms of the City of Hamburg, and bore the date 1901. They had, besides, that peculiar fatty feel which silver coins have which are not coined by master craftsmen. After some time, the police happened on a clue. The mother-in-law of one of the principal warders of a local penitentiary was discovered endeavouring to utter several false pieces. The police at once placed the house of her daughter's husband under observation,: but as nothing further came to light, the detective Schneider voluntarily went to prison, and, of course, had the run of the place. He was not long in making the startling discovery that the false coins were made in the cell of a prisoner who had been sentenced to several years' penal servitude for this very crime, and aiding and abetting this person was one of the chief warders. The prisoner had told the warder where he had hidden his tools, instruments dies, etc., which he had formerly used. The warder found all these things, and brought them to the prisoner, and helped him to establish a workshop in his cell. All night long work was carried on, the metal was melted, moulded and stamped, and hammering and filingwere conducted as noiselessly as possible But the detective Schneider had sham ears, and the hammering in the cell was heard by him. It transpired that the coins manufactured in this way were carefully collected by the chief warder, who, "with his wife and mother-in-law, put them into circulation. These three worthies were at once arrested.

Farther revelations arc expected implicating other officials in the goal, as it seems impossible that all this elaborate affair could have been carried out without several officials being in the plot,