FORGERS CAPTURED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 793, 14 October 1929, Page 13

FORGERS CAPTURED

| GREAT COUP BY FRENCH SCOTLAND YARD AT WORK SINCE 1923 After six years of investigation, detectives of tlie Paris Surete Genale (the French “Scotland Yard”) j have at last discovered the I haunt and printing workshop of a j gang of forgers who since 1923 have j been circulating counterfeit National Defence Bonds, Government* Stock ! Coupons, postal cheques and stamps, | as well as Bank of England and Bank of France notes, representing a total 1 value of about 15,000,000 francs j (£ 120,000). I Three men, including a former bari- ■ tone of the Marseilles opera named ' Martini, alias Markain, who is believed j to be the head of the gang, have been arrested. | Early in 1923, about 550,000 francs*' worth of false National Defence Bonds were circulated at Metz. In subsequent years, counterfeit bonds of the same manufacture were found at the rate of between £IO,OOO and £20,000 a year. Meanwhile a quantity of false English bank notes and Bank of France 1,000 franc notes were put about. I- These showed some characteristics of ! the forged Defence Bonds. After long inquiries nine people I were caught in various parts of : France, notably at Marseilles, in the act of circulating counterfeit bonds | and notes. When sentenced to terms of penal j servitude, they refused to say where I the mysterious “factory” was. But gradually a flat on the second ! floor of a big house in the centre of 1 Marseilles came to be watched closely by local and Paris police. Two men, the baritone Martini, a i former lithographer, and a painter named '‘Marius Intartaglia,” were in , the habit of entering the flat in the morning, leaving it only in the even* j ing. i They never received visitors, i When Intartaglia arrived at the flat recently, detectives went up with him to the flat. There they found the baritone “at ; work.” Five rooms of the flat had been s turned into a workshop, with the latest equipment for manufacturing false bonds and notes. Chemicals, lithographs, stones, plates, printing machines, and every possible tool to produce counterfeit ( notes and bonds and postal stamps were found and inventoried by the ! police. Several million francs’ worth t*f false, unfinished National Detente Bonds were discovered in the flat, as 1 well as 200 £1 Bank of England note*. The two men made a full confession. which resulted in one of then* i Paris accomplices being aiintfl 1