Daily Kennebec journal., 1908-12-26
In Great Quantities Seized
In New York.
About S4Oo,O00 ''Phony' BEL
qian Franc Notes Circulated.
New York Brokers and Bankers Said
To Have Been Hit Hard.

New York. Dec 25.-William ].
Flynn, chief of the local division of the
Secret Service, went to work yester-
day on the wholesale circulation of boz
eus 1000 franc notes of the Banque Ma
tionale of Belgium, which are said to
have been unloaded on bankers and
brokers in this country to the extent
of s400, 900. Chief Flynn seized a stack
of the notes which had been sent to
Zimmerman & Forshay, the bankers
and brokers at Wall street. for col
lection, and Immediately set the Secret
Service machinery working in an effort
to land the swindlers.
The detection of schemes to float
counterfeit notes of foreign countries
comes within the province of the Sc
cret Service men under the clause re-
lating to attempts to counterfeit the
obligations of foreign countries. The
present counterfeiting scheme, which
is believed to be the work of gang
of clever international swindlers, did
not come to Chief Flynn's attention
until he read the Sun yesterday morn
ing.
Chief Flynn went Immediately to the
Office of Zimmerman & Forshay and
expressed his surprise that, the firm
had had such a quantity of the 1000
franc notes, believed to be counterfeit,
| in their possession for over a week
without reporting the facts to his Of
| fee The bankers explained that there
was lust enough doubt about the ma
| ture of the notes to warrant the firm
| in trying to keep all they had until
they were notified by the National
Bank of Belgium that the notes are
| bogus
"Although the persons concerned IN
| the scheme have had a few days start
| on u.s." said Chief Flynn, II am con-
fdent that we will have some of them
| under arrest before long. as no time
was lost notifying the branches of the
Secret Service elsewhere. l can't tell
as vet how many of the notes were
disposed of, but the scheme appears to
have been a rather far-reaching one.
Apparently the majority of the sus-
pected notes came back to thinner
man & Forshay for collection.
81 find that there is some doubt
among the foreign oney brokers as
to whether these notes are really bad.
The issue of National Bank Of Belgi-
|
is a comparatively new one and the
| brokers here are not very well ac-
ouainted with it. On account of this
disagreement among the brokers l am
yerv anxious to have definite assur-
ances from Belgium that the notes are
| counterfeit. I have heard from sever
al bankers who bought the notes VINO
are entirely satisfied with them.
| member of the firm of Zimmerman
| &. Forshay who is an expert on foreign
| bank notes and who discovered the ma
| ture of the notes in question, said yes
| tert]av that he hadn't changed his opln-
| ion of them. He pointed out several
| characteristics of the suspected notes
| which are not to be found in the genuine
ones. The printing on the face Of the
notes can be seen on the back. and the
1000 mark, which is a watcrmark on the
good notes, is plainly printed on the bad
ones. These, with the curvilineat mark.
which is printed on the good notes and
| slammed on the bad ones are regarded
bv Zimmerman & Forshay as proof that
the notes are bad.
"Taken as n whole" said the expert,
"these are the best counterfeits that
have been worked off here since the bogus
Swedish 100 kronen notes were sold all
over the country about six years ago.
At that time nearly every broker and
banker fell for some of the bad Swedish
notes. and about 10000 of them. or 1,"0,TD
kronen worth. were sold here. These
counterfeitS were so much better than
the good notes that the man who sup
piled the paper to the counterfelters ac-
cepted one in payment for his paper The
ONLY reason the note was detected when
he took it to his bank was that the INK
wasn't dry and it rubbed off on the cash
ier's hands. The men concerned in tha'
swindIe were all caught and sent to jail
but they are probably out now and ur
to new schemes
"We exrect to hear very soon from the
1NNG francs which We shipped to Brus
sells last Friday to be tested. and viii
. then put all our information in the hands
t of the secret service men,
If was said yesterday that at leas
three banking firms bought a big stack 0
the Belgian notes. the amount IN on'
case being 100000 francs. These bankers
have already instructed the Pinkertons
through the American Bankers Assoc1a
ton. to go to work on the case
( representative Of a bank note en-
craving company offered Zimmerman
Forshay par for one of the bad note
n Yesterday with the idea of turning out
g note that couldn't he counterfelted an
a trying to get the Belgian government
engraving business away from the io'
eign firm that has it now. zimmerman
e. Forshay decided not to sell any OF III
n notes even for commercial purposes
;,