BERLIN POLICE COUP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19800, 22 November 1927, Page 11

BERLIN POLICE COUP.

SOVIET NOTE FOKGEKS. ARREST OF GEORGIANS. ALLEGED POLITICAL PLOT. ANTI-BOLSHEVIK CONSPIRACY. By Telcgreph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received November 21, 8.25 p.m.) A. and N.Z. BERLIN, Nov. 21. The German police, by following up the arrests they made in September, have brought to light great conspiracy to forge Soviet bank notes to the extent of £5.000.000. The capital altine which the forgers employed was £BOOO. The police think the aim of the forgers was to embarrass the Soviet Government financially. It is even alleged that the capital was furnished from British sources, with the secondary purpose of assisting the anti-Bolshevik movement in Georgia. Allegedly forged Russian banknotes weighing a ton and of the face value of several millions of pounds, were confiscated at Frankfort by the police. They arrested ten men, including natives of Georgia, who were concerned in a plot to secure the independence of Georgia, which they thus hoped to finance. The men arrested also included a Munich solicitor and a Frankfort printer. Georgia, in Transcaucasia, is included in the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. It is a country with over 2000 years of history. It was annexed by Russia in 1801, a violation of a Treaty of Alliance of 1783. In 1918 it regained its independence, but in 1921 the Bolshevik forces occupied the country, and it was obliged to become a member of the Transcaucasian Federation, one of the seven groups which form the Soviet Republic. The oil wells ( of, Batum and Baku, and the richest manganese ore beds in the world, are in Georgia. The capital is Tillis.