An Easter Egg

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 271, 16 April 1914, Page 5

An Easter Egg

SPURIOUS " TENNERS " IN CIRCULATION. WHOLESALE SWINDLE IN AUCKLAND. By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, Last Night, 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 had 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 Bank of New Zealand note. Other banks in the city were warned, but already a number of the notes had been accepted by the tellers. From then on, bank tellers all over the city were kept busy explaining to angry shopkeepers that the £lO notes they wished to pay in were forgeries, and numerous customers in shops where the bad news had been received, and who tendered tenners, were subjected to embarrassing cross-examination. To-night tine 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 operandi was simple. On Saturday night, for instance, a man went along Karangahake Toad, entered cevry shop that was open, and purchased something wherever he could get change for his £lO notes. His purchases seldom ran to wore than a few shillings, but he bought all sorts of tilings, such as chocolates, cycle accessories, fruit, ladies' Btockings, 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 indivduol who has 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 en Saturday and Monday. If this is the case, they have by this tune, no doubt, been distributed all over the province. The 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 the number 169,948, and are evidently the work of a skilled photographer and lithographer. When carefully compared with tie genuine notes the forgery is easily seen. The shade of the filigree border is brown instead of black, and the details i K the note are blurred instead of being black and sharp. The mountain which shows 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 be a mass of tern in the smallest type, is simply a blur. The bank watermark is missing from the paper, but the latter approaches very nearly to the quality of the gerwrine article. The left side of the note shbwo a perforation in the ordinary way.