Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1901-01-06
COUNTERFE FEITERS RUN
TOEARTH IN NEW YORK
Secret Service Men Capture a
Gang of Eight.
THEY ARE OLD OFFENDERS

Have Been Flooding the City With
Spurious Silver Coins For Several
Years-Their Capture Is Regarded as
Very Important One.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 5.--The officials
of the secret service of the treasury de-
partment, under the direction of Chief
Wilkie, made number of highly i'm
portant arrests in New York last night
and this morning For at least two
months the secret service people have
been at work to discover the makers of
large number of all silver counterfeit
coins, mostly quarters and halves, which
were being freely circulated in New
York city. The result has been that
Pho Paris and several companions, all
Italians, were arrested and are now in
Jail awaiting the application of the
United States commissioner, who prob
ably will be taken today. The fact that
large numbers of these all silver coun-
terfeits were being freely circulated in
New FORK during the last two years has
given Chief Wilkie a great deal of
trouble. The coins being of almost pure
silver. 900 fine, and fairly we'll made,
they readily passed wherever presented
and rendered extremely difficult the
task Of locating the makers and passers
Some time ago two Italians called on
Platt & Co., of Gold street, New York,
large dealers in sheet silver and gold,
and purchased 900 ounces of sheet sill
yer. One of the men was observed at
the time of the purchase to compare one
OF the sheets with coin which he took
from his pocket, probably with a view
OF determlng whether the sheet was of
the same thickness as the coin he had in
his possession. This circumstance was
made known to the secret service off,
cials by Platt s. Co., and force was
Immediately set to work upon this new
lead. From the fact that the men took
away only small part of the purchase,
1t was assumed they would shortly re-
turn for the rest After time the two
men again appeared and took away an.
other small quantity to III Mangin
street, on the east side of New York.
Well Equipped Plant.
From there they were shadowed to 95
Watt street. Detectives were put to
work to observe every move made by
the people who frequented these houses
with the result that their lodging places
were discovered and the fact established 4
beyond doubt that at both of these num-
bers work was being actively carried on.
Yesterday morning one of the roomers
in the Magin street house became supi-
cious that the men on the floor below
were doing some sort of crooked work
and he at once notified q policeman on
that beat of his suspicious, which fact
came near rendering ineffective all the
work that bad been done.
The policeman s unsuccessful attempt
to gain admittance to the house aroused
their suspicious and all precipitately fed
to the Watt street place, carrying with
them many of their dies, coins and
blanks.
The secret service officials, realizing
the danger of further delay, immedi-
ately forced an entrance into both the
houses, where they found several of the
men, eight in all, at work. Both houses
were fully equipped with modern ma.
chinery for rolling silver, punching
blanks, etc. In one of the places a screw
press weighing tons was in operation.
About 100 ounces of silver and quite
large basket full of steel dies were Sc
cured. Many of the dies, however, had
been so so.mutilated as to be beyond use.
1t seemed that as soon as the policeman
had given the alarm the counterfeiters
began to file away the dies to prevent
them from being used as evidence.
Chief Wilkie said today that this
gang probably was responsible for at
least 80 per cent of all the silver counter
feits which have been put In circulation
in New York during the last two years.