The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1911-11-26
New York Police Say They Are Co
ing to Prove Carlo carIesi to be
the Prince of Forged
Check Workers.
IN THE GAME TEN YEARS
He Has Been so Crafty in His Opera
tons That it Has Eeen Diff
cut to sect the Goods"
on Him.
United Press Special Service. ]

UNITED Press Special Service.
NEW YORK, Nov. 25.-Never was
there such another forged check
worker, sc the Gotham police say, as
they declare they are going to prove
Carlo Carlesi to be, when they get
started on lis trial, two or three
months from now.
People Nfo deal in bogus checks
as a regular thing, don't often keep
lit up long without getting caught, be-
cause they have to show themselves
to their victims to get any money out
of them, and the result is that before
long there are lot of good descrip.
lions of them in circulation, they get
arrested, the victims are on hand to
identify them and they get long terms
in prison.
But Carlesi has been at the game,
If the police story is right, for ten
years and for half of that time he's
been suspected and under surveillance
but so crafty that nobody has been
able to get the goods on him. In
She AAOtAheiiHC, Lie VI Tic
law aver, he has raked in considerably
more than a half a million dollars.
The police look on this as good deal
of an achievement. At last, however.
they have Signor earliest locked up,
though it still remains for them to
make out their case against him to
the satisfaction OF jury.
earliest himself tells a perfectly
straight story. He says he is moth
Ing but an honest saloonkeeper who
never negotiated bogus check in his
life, hasn't thing to do with the
Black Hand, as the detectives say he
has. and is simply a victim OF police
persecution or nkiicadness
The police version is that earliest
was the executive head of the bogus
check business, without personally
participating in the manufacture of
the forgeries or in the operation of
disposing of them. They assert, how
ever, that like most captains of in
dustry, he absorbed the lions share
of the proceeds of the enterprise he
was at the head of The following, in
brief, is the method the detectives
say he pursued:
earliest would pick out some big
business man, firm or company who
or which he felt sure must have a
large bank account and be in the hab-
it of drawing occasional good sized
checks against it. He had two men
in his service now under arrest and
known to the police as William j.
Schutzberger and Isidore Weis. one
of whom would write to the man, firm
or company il question, making some
sort OF d purchase and enclosing
| money order for it, The money order
would invariably be too large and the
man, firm or company to whom. or
which 1t vas sent would usually re
turn check for the over payment.
This check would be turned over TO
earliest and he, in turn, would give it
to a certain young italian artist,
whom the police haven't laid hands
on yet but are looking for, and with
the right kind of ink and camel's
iAt-Ai VI toii t!!IS llSL NOuiQ produce
SO marvelously accurate a reproduc-
ton of 1t, signature and all, that even
the officers of the bank on which the
genuine check was drawn were in
yariably fooled by it. The only things
the artist would leave out of the re
production would be the date and the
amount, The reproduction finished,
earliest would cash the genuine check
in the regular way and call Schultz
bergers and Weiss services into
requisition again.
Sometimes one, sometimes the 9th
er and sometimes both of these two
individuals would open store or an
office somewhere in New York or some
other city-for the gangs operations
ultimately extended pretty we'll all
over the country-and make com
Portable deposit in the nearest bank
After reasonably close relations had