The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-03-29

| the Boyd-Ceprico gang, and the "Castle'
was the rallying place of this. We ex-
| pected to find big lot of certificates stored
there, but instead we got M. Greenwald
"Max Katszauer was in back room
| with a woman, and learning that we were
| in the saloon he made his escape. He
went to his room at 231 O'Farrell street.
but Deputy Marshal Harris was there and
| arrested him as soon as he put in an APP
| pearance.
"In his room we found part OF seal
which they used on the forged certificates,
and in Greenwald's room in the same
| bnilding we found number of the forged
documents themselves. When the men
| found they were cornered they made no
kick, but came along quietly.
"Greenwald begged hard to be allowed
to go back to say good-by to lady friend,
but we were taking no chances, so we took
him along. We have a sure case against
all of them and Ciprico will not crawl out
of this scrape like he did out OF the other
one.
"The certificates were made in Victoria,
B. c.. and sent to San Francisco. The
conspirators tried number of people who
asserted they could copy Collector We'll
burns and Deputy Cusick's signatures,
but they were all failures.
FINALLY they sent samples of the sigma
ture back to Victoria, and with them
seventy-fve certificates. These latter were
wrapped up in newspapers and were adj
dressed in the handwriting of KatZauer to
man named Grant.
During the snow blockade the railway
mail clerks had very little to do and one
OF them accidentally discovered what was
| in the newspaper packages. That put US
onto the scheme, and we have been work
ing on it ever since.
eve employed a Chinese named Lee
Moy to help us, and it was he that went to
Ciprico and Foss to negotiate for the pur-
chase of seventy-five certificates. If the
to buy 500 more. The price to be paid was
SIS for each merchants certificate and $50
for each laborer's.
"The gang had just completed their
plans by securing the services of Sullivan,
who is an expert penman. This, think,
was among their first transactions-cer-
tainly the first on any large scale. 1t will
be some time, l think, before anybody else
attempts to go into the business
Ciprico, Foss and Katzauer appear to
be the principal in the gang. When he
was implicated in the frauds of seven or
eight years ago he was an Inspector in the
Custom-hOuse. 1t was his duty to inspect
the certificates of all Chinese who desired
to land. He of course passed all the stolen
documents which Boyd had sold in China
and in this way made fortune. Trading
in bogus certificates seems to be his hobby.
Foss has been freight clerk on the Gee
anic dock for eight or ten years. Suspicion
has attached to him on several occasions,
and attempts have been made to catch
him, but all failed. This time he was
caught red-handed, and it will go hard
with him when the case comes to trial.
Katzauer engineered the scheme in
Oregon, and it was he who made the ar
rangements for selling the certificates in
the Northwest. Greenwald is only a lad,
and he was to have been outside agent in
Chinatown for the sale of the certificates,
while as before stated Sullivan is an ex-
Deputy County Clerk and an expert pen
man. He was to sign the names of Wei
burn and Cusick to the certificates.