CLEVER COINERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22819, 28 August 1937, Page 2 (Supplement)

CLEVER COINERS

POLICE RAID DENS"PERFECT"- SHILLINGS MADE METHOD TO BE KEPT SECRET One of the cleverest coining gangs of modern times was broken up Inst month by sentences of penal servitude passed at the Old Bailc.v, London, 011 three men. So perfect was their work that even experienced bank cashiers were deceived, and Scotland Yard could not discover what method of manufacture the coiners had adopted. It was not until detectives raided their den that the truth was revealed. At the request of officials at the Royal Mint, the coiners' process is to be kept secret. Tho plant they used has ' been dismantled, and added to Scotland Yard's " Black Museum." The men who appeared in the dock at the Old Bailey, and their sentences, were: Harold Avis, alias Stephen Amos, aged 29, fitter, sentenced to five years' penal servitude for making counterfeit coins and possessing apparatus for making them; his brother, Frederick Avis, aged 81, mechanic, five years' penal servitude for possessing coins and apparatus; and Alfred Thomas Bushell, aged 26, mechanic, who received three years' penal servitude for a similar offence. Struggle with Officer

The coins they made were all "shillings." They looked like shillings, rnt g true, and were perfectly milled. The men were observed passing the coins at a greyhound race track, and subsequently the police kept watch on two garages, one in Lower Clapton Road, the other in Clarence Road. Hackney. At both places the men worked in the lofts. Frederick Avis and Bushell were arrested when they emerged from the one in Lower Clapton Road, but not before Avis struggled with one of tho officers. During the struggle he threw awav a receipt for three pounds of copper strip.

Harold Avis was arrested at the other carafe, where the police found a lathe, a press, bottles of acid, and strips and sheets of copper. Microscopic fragments of the metal found on his clothing by a scientist at Hentlpn police laboratory helped to convict liim. Other evidence proved against him was his renting of the garage on a three-year lease and the purchase of a lathe under a hire-purchase agreement. Avis' pleaded that he was merely the "cat's paw" of two men named TTathawav and E. Smith. It was for them, he declared, that he rented the garage and was purchasing the lathe. But from innuiries made by the police, it is believed Avis had been engaged in coining for more than a year. They also believe that his brother and Bushell were the first to discuss the process. Passed on to Bookmakers The counterfeit coins were not passed directly 011 to shopkeepers, but 011 to bookmakers. Bets on every dog in every race at the meeting were made by the men with a number of bookmakers so that they were certain to receive a return on each race. Harold Avis, accomplished mechanic, is a married man, whose wife lives at Chatham. He has three convictions, the last being in 1929. when he was sentenced to one month's imprisonment for assault. His brother has not been in trouble. before. Bushell. their fellow prisoner, has heen convicted only once. That was five vears ago. when he was sentenced to three months' hard labour for stealing a motor-cycle combination. Just before they were sentenced, Frederick Avis exclaimed from the dock: "T have never craved mercy, and T never will. 1 am a victim of circumstance: 1 have been convicted on lies and circumstantial evidence." None of them showod any sign of emotion on hearinu their fate. All of them walked smartly from the dock, and two of them glanced up at tbe gallery as though thev expected to see someone whom they knew. Mrs. Frederick Avis burst into tears when she heard tiie result of the trial. " T never dreamed he was engaged in this sort of thing," she exclaimed.