COUNTERFEIT NOTES

Southland Times, Issue 17627, 16 April 1914, Page 5

COUNTERFEIT NOTES

EXTENSIVE CIRCULATION DISCOVERED. (Per United Press Association), — ' £ AUCKLAND, ApcU 15: Something of a sensation in town by the discoverey that quite a large number of live ten pound Bank of New' Zealand notes In circulation are forgeries. They were probably put through the totailsator at the EUerslie' Easter meeting. Many people have been victimised. The notes are all' numbered and have been photographed from an original. t The reproduction is said to be the finest that has ever come under the notice of the bank's experts here. FURTHER PARTICULARS. WELL-ORGANISED -CAMPAIGN. DESCRIPTION OF THE FORGERIES. * Auckland; April 15! When the various banks In the city, opened, for business this morning and trades people began to pay in money It was discovered that a swindle of considerable dimension had been perpetrated during the holidays. A teller at' a suburban branch of the Bank of New Zealand discovered in a pay-in a very good counterfeit ten pound .Bank of New Zealand note.'. Other banks in the city •were at once warned, but already a number of the notes had been accepted by tollers. From then on bank tellers all over the city were kept busy explaining to angry, shopkeepers that the ten pound notes they wished to pay in were forgeries, and a number of customers at shops where the bad news had been received. who tendered “tenners,” were subjected to an embarassing cross-ex-amination. To-night 'the police have received information about sixty counterfeit notes, and there is little doubt that many more are in circulation. The counterfeiters laid their plans well as the notes were put into circulation on Saturday when it was known that three days must elapse before the- banks opened and the fraud could be detected, Tiie modus operand! was simple. On Saturday night, for instance, a man went along Karangahape road and entered every shop that was open and purchased something wherever he could get change for his ten pound notes. His purchases seldom ran into more than a few shillings. but he bought all Sorts of things —chocolates, cycle accessories, fruit, ladies' stockings, bottles of brandy, and shaving soap and in *every case got genuine currency for his spurious notes. The police, of course, are hard on the track of at least one individual who has been described by scores of revengeful shopkeepers, but the swindlers have had three clear days’ start and persons of their apparent ingenuity will carefully cover their tracks. It is ttiought likely that the forged notes were put into circulation through the totalisator at Ellerslie on Saturday and Monday, and if this is the case they have by this time, no doubt, been distributed all over the province. Banking officials are of opinion that the forgery is the cleverest thing of the kind , ever seen In Auckland, and add that it is the most widely-worked swindle of the kind yet perpetrated in the city. The notes all bear the.date, October 1. 1913. and number 199/948 and are -evidently the work of a skilled photographer and lithographer. When carefully compared with genuine notes the forgery is easily seen. The shade of the filigree border is brown instead of black and details in the note are blurred instead of being black and sharp. The mountain, which shows as an intermediate one in the picture on the left-hand side, is completely missing from the forgery, and the printing on the back, which should be a mass of tens in the smallest type, is simply a. biur. The bank watermark is missing from tiie paper, but the later approaches very- nearly to quality of the genuine article. The left side of the note shows the perforation mark in tiie ordinary' way.