Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-07-07
By
]. HASkM

are printed. 1t is made by q secre,
process and has so individual an ap.
pearance-and feeling that. almost every.
one can detect a substitute. All de.
nominations of American money arr
printed on notes of a uniform size
Therefore a favorite device of tn,
counterfeiter is to take a 81 bill an(
raise its denomination. He will bleach
it and have a piece of nearly white
distinctive currency paper on which
he will print a note of a higher de
nomination. Such notes are hard t.
detect, especially if the counterfeitel
prints a $50 or 500 note of a new ant
unfamiliar series.
Another scheme is to take a note
and change only the figures. This
proves a snare to the counterfeiter il
he gives such a note to a man familiar
with the designs of money. Such q
man knows that a $40 note has a buf.
falo in its design, but no $50 nor $1OC
issue has. This sort of counterfeitins
has increased with the new money be-
cause the counterfeiters know that few
people are familiar with the designs OF
the various new issues.
The same is true of the Liberty bond
issues. No two issues are alike and
a counterfeiter changing the demon
nation of a 500 bond to $1,000 could
easily be detected by one who had
studied bond designs.
Experts In Secret Service
The secret service at Washington
has many experts who are very hard
to fool with even the %cleveresr coun-
%terfeit, and while counterfeiting has
increased to a great extent, the cir
culation of counterfeit money has not
done so. The new counterfeit issues
are detected very early in their careers
and the source discovered and stopped.
1t means more work and constant vigi-
lance for the government agents and
greatly increased investigative work.
The appearance of women in the
counterfeiting profession has caused
the secret service many difficulties.
The are not engaged in the
actual manufacture of counterfeits, but
are confederates in the passing of the
spurious currency.
Counterfeiters seldom work alone in
spite of the fact that the records show
that only the counterfeiter who plays
a lone hand meets with success for any
extended period of time. But it is
hard to practice the profession singly
The great difficulty is in getting the
counterfeit money into circulation. To
accomplish this the master counterfeit
er has ~accomplices. The general prac-
tice is for the counterfeiter 10 sell his
spurious money at a substantial dis
count. He will sell a 500 counterfeit
bill to a passer for $50 of genuine
money and of course no n is more
expert in detecting spurious money
than a counterfeiter. The passer then
make another sale getting perhaps
S15 in real money for his 500 coun-
~terfeit.
Great care is taken not TO let many
of them get into circulation at the
same place
II is in this passing branch of the
profession that ONE are being en-
ployed. They make valuable confed-
crates because when detected. they fire.
quently escape arrest by claiming to
know little about handling money and
therefore are easily imposed upon.
A curious psychological mystery
about the whole profession of
terfeiting is that a really good
terfeiter requires skill of such a high
order that he could earn a better living
by honest employment of his talents
than by the manufacture OF spurious
currency. Counterfeiting is a long te-
dious process. beset with hard work and
difficulties and it is rarely indeed that
a counterfeiter makes as much money
before he is ap~prehended AS he could
from regular honest employment as
an engraver.