FORGED “TENNERS.”

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 96, 16 April 1914, Page 5

FORGED “TENNERS.”

THE AUCKLAND SENSATION. [Per Press Association.] Auckland, April 15. When the various banks in the city opened for business this morning, and tradespeople began to pay in their money, it was discovered that a swindle of considerable dimensions bad been perpetrated during the holidays. The teller at a suburban branch of the Bank of New Zealand discovered in a pay-in a very good counterfeit £lO Brink of New Zealand note. Other banks in the city were warned, but already a number of notes had boon accepted by the tellers. From then on, bank tellers all over the city wore kept busy explaining to angry shopkeepers that the £lO notes they wished to pay in were forgeries, and numerous customers in the shops where the bad news bad been received, and who tendered tenners, were subjected to mbarrassing cross-examination. To-night the police have received information of about sixty of the counterfeits, and there is little doubt that many more are in circulation. The counterfeiters laid their plans well. The notes were put into circulation on Saturday, when it was known that, three days must elapse before the banks would open and the fraud be detected.

The modus operand! was simple. On Saturday night, for instance, a man went along Karangahake road, entered every shop that was open, and purchased something wherever he could get change for his £lO notes. His purchases seldom ran to more than a few shillings, but he bought all sorts of things, such as 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 lias been described by scores of revengeful shopkeepers, but the swindlers have had three clear days’ start, and as they are persons of apparent ingenuity they will carefully cover their tracks.

It is thought likely that the forged notes were put in circulation through the totalisator on Saturday and Monday. If this is the case, they have by this time, no doubt, been distributed all over the province. The hanking officials are of opinion that the forgery is the cleverest tiling, 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 hear the date October 1, 1913, and the number 169,948, and are evidently the work of a skilled photographer. When carefully compared with the genuine notes the forgery is easily seen. The shade of the filigree border is brown instead of black, and the 1 ' details in the note are blurred instead of being black and sharp. The mountain which allows as an intermediate tone in the picture on the left-hand side is completely missing from the forgery, and the printing on the back, which should he a mass of tens in the smallest type, is simply a blur. The hank watermark is missing from the paper, hut the latter approaches very nearly to the quality of the genuine article. The left side of the note shows a perforation in the ordinary way.