The Oskaloosa herald. (Oskaloosa, Mahaska County, Iowa) 1885-1919, 1913-08-21
CHECK RA|SER'S WAY
Expert Has Little Difficulty in
Stealing Fortune
Operator Finds Il Easy to Alter Fine
Writing, but Difficult With Gale
sraphy Of lsnorant-"Man-
uat" Used by Crooks.

Chicago Chicago crook sat in 3
room Just OF La Sale street four
years ago studying check. 1t was
made out for s27, and was certified By
the state bank on which it was drawn.
The crooks specially was check rails
ing. He was preparing to steal a for
tune with the little piece OF paper
The president Of q cement construc-
ton company had written the check
He had taken what he thought proper
business precautions. He wrote
"twenty-seyen." drew horizontal line
through two short vertical lines. and
added land 00-100" before the word
dollars" on the check.
The long horizontal line through the
two short vertical lines, often termed
q hickey" Is frequent device
against the INSCRIPTIONS. The man in
the back room Just off La Sale street
made three movements with his pen
and the hickey" became "th." Then
he wrote "ous," the word land" COM
dieting thousands" Three ciphers
were added to the figures In the line
above. The certified check was then
deposited in a trust and savings bank,
and a withdrawal of $27 900 was i'm
mediately made against 1t. ,#...s
veteran thief catcher in Chicago
recently, in recounting this incident,
added that there" exists among pro-
fessional check raisers what amounts
to manual.
Write me check" he urged vis-
itor. .L. ~,
A check for 5000 was written, It
was passed oven to then detective,
Within two minutes, without an erasr
ure being made, 1t called for $500. v
by the manual the figure two is
always potential of Ave-" he explain
ed. THE aim Is always to avoid the
interlining or the extending of words.
Check raisers know all the characters
which lend themselves to changes that
cannot be detected. The capital IT,
as most of US write 1t. can. for In
stance, be changed to the capital -
without the slightest trouble.
Here are a few Of the changes that
can be made almost as fast as writ
ten: .., ,..r
"One' to eight y
1.-TWO to 'tive.' 4 ~, .~,.. Il
ten to Atty .. r., ..,....
-Four to forty ... -t..
Twenty to seventy -s@ 20
"Now, the figure T. for instance,
may be readily formed into any other
figure save e and -
t'The word hundred may be formed
easily from the ripping scroll that
many write after sum. Almost any
movement of lines that have any regu-
larity may be formed into words.
"The hardest check to raise or alter
Is the one written by nearly Hitter
ate person" the expert continues.
'.The gracefully flowing hand 10 the
easiest changed.
There is. In fact, no comparison
between raising checks with genu-
inc signature and forging the sigma
ture itself-so far as the ease Of exc
cution is concerned.
''Of course, banks and business
house, many of them, at least, pro-
tect themselves nowadays with de-
vices that brand a limitation Of the
check indelibly into the very texture
Of the paper. In this field, too, many
devices at first thought absolute safe
guards were soon outwitted by the
crooks.
Filling Perforated Checks.
take a machine. that perforated
the paper with the exact amount for
which the check was drawn Really
| all that was needed was common
little punch and a bottle of invisible
glue. Every crook knows where to
put his hands on that. Or else they
use a bit Of money member and then
peel 1t off. at,
But what does the crook do? He
has a check perforated 5000. He takes
his little punch and punches from the
! edge of the check few tiny disks Of
the same size. With a needle tip he
| plugs up the holes In the last dollar
sign. After the glue is dry he punches
cipher in its place and dollar mark
after 1t. Where the machine perfor-
ated an entire letter, the crook bought
smaller machine and filled up the
perforations before making new ones