Forgers Captured.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1425, 22 June 1899, Page 13

Forgers Captured.

BIGGEST COUNTERFEIT FACTORY EVER KNOWN IN THE UNITED STATES. NEW YORK, April 27. The arrest yesterday in Philadelphia of the long-sought gang of lOOdol note forgers is the most important that has ever been made in this country. The seizures prove the existence of a colossal conspiracy worked on the most daring lines. The leaders are two expert working engravers in Philadelphia named Tavlor and Bre•dell. Detectives have been watching them for several .weeks, purposely allowing them to bring one of their pulls to the eve of completion so that all the chiefs might be •captured round this counterfeiting plant. There are five of them, and they were seized at one swoop. The discovery was made just in time to prevent' the paper mill being put in operation by which the bills are made undistingiushable from G' veminent notes. In the gang's possession was found enough counterfeit Treasury note-printing paper to produce notes of the value of nine million dollars. The engraving plantincluded face and back plates for a lOOdol. •certificate, which had been used for a long time, causing incalculable trouble to the Treasury, whose experts accepted many of the forged notes. There were also completed plates for two bills of lOOdols. and oOdols. respectively, unfinished plates for Lincoln's head and a Tammany note for lOOdols., an unfinished 20dol. note plate, and three plates for a 10-cent internal revenue stamp affixable on boxes of 50 cigars. There were nine tons of water-marked internal revenue stamp paper of truly wonderful counterfeit sufficient to produce 25,000,000 stamps. This is greater than the stock maintained at Washington. The gang occupied the top floor of a house in Philadelphia. They worked in •one room only, which was locked. The .others were filled with tobacco cases and (counterfeit paper.—"Laffan."'