Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-03-21
TIE LACK oE CLEVER CROOKS.
The Pitfalls for Criminals Make Their
Escape Impossible.

w. j. Burns says that in more than
20 years employment with the gov
eminent secret service his department
did not turn up a single counterfeit
bill. All of the credit for discovering
counterfeit money belongs to the bank
clerks of this country" said he. We
took these bad notes when they were
brought to our attention and went af-
ter the makers. but it is these young
men in the banks who are the forger's
greatest menace.
4 have been telling bank clerks
that they never need to pay out mon
ey or a forged check if they will ex-
ereise a simple precaution. man
brings a check to the paying teller's
window and asks to have it cashed.
| If the teller knows his man, then it
is all right. If he does not know him,
he has a perfect right to take min
ute or two to examine the check. If
the check is made out to cash or
'bea1er' ask the stranger if it is his
| signature on the bottom. Make him
write it for You again, and compare
| the two If the man is not entitled
| to the money YOU will see him edging
toward the door by this time. A forg-
| er cannot look you in the eye and de-
fend a bad check
Mr.. Burns has poor opinion of the
men Who take up counterfeiting, forg-
cry, and safe blowing as a business.
There is nothing so futile as crime
he says. People ask me some times
| if there are any clever crooks | don't
| know of any. The ones l have known
Were all caught. But so far as is
known, no one has ever perpetrated a
fraud on the government currency
system and made good with it, The
counterfeter is like any other crimi-
| nal he cannot work without leaving
| traces of his activity. If a crime APP
| pears to be mystery it is not be-
| cause the perpetrators left no clews,
but because no one has happened to
| find them.
"The cleverest criminals | have ever
| known We're the two photo mechanical
| engravers who counterfeited the gov
ernmcnt's 500 note bearing the Monroe
head. These men spent two years in
| preparing for their masterpiece. They
| were SO careful that they thought they
| had covered all their tracks. They
| avoided the commonest ptfali by using
| genuine banknote paper, and their
work was so perfect that most of the
| treasury's experts pronounced the
| counterfeit bills genuine. You may re-
member that the government had to
redeem all of the bills of this issue be-
| cause it could not tell which were real
| end which counterfeited These men
spent $120,000 for their own paper mill,
| and never relaxed their vigilance for n
moment but they We're caught, and
| why? Because, as l say. no man can
| commit crime without slipping up on
| something.
| "These men solve their greatest pro-
| bleln by working out a process for
| bleaching 81 bills, which gave them
| their write paper to work on. They
| avoided errors of engraving by using
| photography and printing from steel
/ plates Their bills were as good as
| those printed by the government, but
| for one small thing. In trying to match
| the color of a small red seal the coun-
| terfeiters worked for months mixing
| their own inks. BY the time they had
| made 2000 combinations or more they
| had simplified their methods, with the
! result that when they evolved the cor
rect shade of red they neglected to boil
| the ingredients. A few weeks after the
| first bill was put into circulation a
clerk at the Subtreasury applied a
+, wet thumb to the seal and 1t snudged.
! That opened the investigation that led
| to the counterfeiters' conviction.
"The bankers organization have
| done much to discourage safe blowing.
We employ yeggmen on our force,
| whose business it is to mingle with
| crooks and get into their confidence.
The American bankers association
never stops pursuit OF criminal WIN
has robbed one of it's members. Many
| safe blowers give a wide berth to any
| bank carrying membership in the as
sociation for that reason. The crook
| who robs a bank has a very slim
chance Of ever enjoying the money he