FINGER-PRINT SURGERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19608, 9 April 1927, Page 2 (Supplement)

FINGER-PRINT SURGERY.

WEALTHY CRIMINAL'S RUSE. SKIN GRAFTED ON FINGERS. DEFYING, IDENTIFICATION. - EFFICACY OF PRESENT SYSTEM. Quite recently it was asserted by an eminent professor that the famous fingerprint system in use by the police was not infallible, says Netley Lucas, writing in the «day News. This was because the professor had discovered a case of two twins in a London suburb who had identical finger-prints. This statement caused no little stir in thfe police headquarters of the world, and letters poured in to Scotland Yard questioning the veracity of the assertion. It was then stated by the heads of the Finger Print Department at the "Yard" that the two prints which were said to be identical were not so. At this statement a sigh of relief went, up from, the police forces of the world, and Scotland Yard preserved its claim, that finger-prints as a method of identification are infallible, or rather practically so, since the odds against two persons having identical finger-tips is one in sixtyfour millions. "Now I propose to make a statement which I am prepared to prove," continues the writer, ."that, although the possibility of people having the same fin-ger-prints is practically negligible, yet it is possible for master-criminals with sufficient funds to have their fingerprints altered surgically, thus making their identification and connection with previous convictions an impossibility. Aa Unsuccessful Operation. "A hundred 'and one different dodges have been attempted by criminals to alter their finger tips. Cases of sandpapering and brutal mutilation have often occurred, but in these cases the criminals have been remanded in custody until their fingers mended, and true prints could be taken for identification at Scotland Yard. "One wealthy super-criminal—an American; —paid a doctor £SOO to have the skin taken from the tips of his fingers and other skin grafted on. For a time all went well, then, and two years later, his old prints had assorted themselves, through the perspiration glands, and the grafted and false skin assumed the whorls or the man's original and known fiinger{jrints. He got very near to success,, bat le did not count enough on nature. "A successful attempt to alter and obliterate finger-prints has reached me lately, and the method which was used I discovered after some investigation. The actual operation was made on a certain English criminal by a French surgeon. Skin Grafted Over Wax. "Having placed the patient under an anaesthetic, the surgeon peeled the skin from all the fingers, and then removed™ a fractional part of the subcutaneous tissues, leaving a spoonlika cavity. He then poured into these minute cavities wax such as is used in plastic surgery, and over this grafted skin taken from the toes of the patient, replacing the skin from the fingers where he had removed the skin from the man's feet.

"Three weeks later the bandages were taken from the man's hands and feet, and the result of the operation disclosed. His finger-prints were absolutely gone, of course, and although under close scrutiny it was possible to see that some surgical change had been made in the man's fingers, yet the cause might have bocn™ste result"of a bad burn, or the accidental crushing of the hands. "y ''l myself closely examined the man's, hands, and would not have noticed their peculiarity had I not known that the operation had taken place. I cannot reveal the criminal's name, but Scotland Yard has among its 4,000,000 sets of fingerprints his ' dabs.' Method of Scotland Yard. "Up till now Scotland Yard's system has been this: as soon as a has been charged his finger-prints have been taken and sent to the Finger-Print Department at Scotland Yard, where an expert has at once relegated the prints to a particular catogory by the whorls. He has then by a system of elimination found the set already on record, compared them, and, satisfied that they tally, nas marked the registered number of the set of finger-prints and the man's real name, and sent this intelligence to the Criminal Record Office. This department at once gets out the prisoner's dossier, in which is all his previous record. "If, however, the prisoner has never been in the hands of the police before, then the set of prints are returned to the station marked "No record." "If finger-prints can be obliterated as I have shown, Scotland Yard will have to rely entirely on photographs and the inaccurate Bertillon system. Science must invent some new method of identification which cannot be obliterated or altered surgically. And it must do so quickly."