KING OF THE COINERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18374, 14 April 1923, Page 2 (Supplement)

KING OF THE COINERS.

MONEY AND BANK NOTES. A WORLD-WIDE ORGANISATION. ■ The British and American secret polico have come upon a'■ world-wide counterfeit plot. , Mr. Joseph { Palma,/ head of - the New York special squad of coiner-hunters, says that spurious American money has been .found as far away as. Egypt '.< and Cuba, r '■■' - s ■■': In addition to more than 100 arrests in America arrests have been made in England, Italy, Australia, Germany, France, and Cuba. '■ ■-.-•'■: •; ■ " ' The British Treasury has announced that a new type of £1 Treasury note is to be issued. Is this the effect of the discovery of the plot step to foil the international counterfeiters ? • ' , It«4s'remarkable. that there should be a change in the £1 note at this time, although Treasury officials declare that it is mere coincidence, and only a step toward the production of a perfect note. Somewhere in . the world the master mind of the vast criminal organisation works in his hiding-place. No one yet knows where it is, but it is believed to bo somewhere in Southern or Eastern Europe. The. unusual number of counterfeit American notes in circulation, both in the United States and Europe, has caused the leading American banks with branches in Europe to issue circulars of warning.

. A clue was provided late last year in the discovery that the many thousands of pounds in spurious notes found on the two Italians who were arrested in San Francisco and New York .were printed from plates that had been engraved in Italy and smuggled into- America, in .cheeses. ' . -.■• .'■ '~-f ; • Scotland Yard has Jocen kept in touch with developments by the American Secret Service, and investigations in London have revealed the fact that a considerable number of spurious American Federal Reserve ten-dollar notes have been in circulation. 7 " They : are Wonderful imitations," said an official of a London branch of an American bank, . "and after they have once got into circulation may easily be passed off in a bundle of good notes; The only way to detect them is by the difference in the paper. , •., " The forgery is the K more difficult to detect because the paper on which the spurious notes are printed has in it the little thin red lines that you find in . a genuine American bank note." ,: It is believed that the gang has printed forgeries of the face value, of over 10,000,000 dollars, equal -to about £2,000,000. : * l >'. •/' The gang's organisation includes manufacturers, retailers, and '• distributing agents. '.'■:, Considering the fact that more than a thousand • persons in different i countries have been engaged in the work the secrecy maintained is amazing, f The arrests in New York, important as they are, -are only a : step in the tracking down 'of this powerful and ' nefarious organisation. "Its 'source" is still f undiscovered, but there is reason to believe that some of those already 'in custody will, to -save: their own skins, supply tho necessary evidence to discover where the plates are made and- bring : the chiefs 'to justice,. ,- --•.•'' •-'•'■■ *':" •' '.<■