The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1923-03-02
COUNTERFETTERS
.NABBED In new YORK

New York, Feb. 21.-Secret ser
vice operatives Wednesday rounded
up 81 c6unterfeiters involved in a
plot of international scope, through
which between s1,OOO,OOO and $1O,-
100000 in spurious money has been
circulated
A nationwide hunt is being carried
on, it was discovered, for the capture
of 1000 members of a gang which
maintained its headquarters in a base
ment in the Italian quarter of New
York.
The plot was barred after the cap
ture Tuesday night of three men, al
legged by the authorities to be the
leaders of the organization, and the
discovery of the printing presses
which turned out hundreds of thous-
ands of United States So, SIS, $40 and
$50 bills, American silver quarters,
gold pieces, Austrian kronen, Italian
lire, internal revenue stamps and GER
tifcates, postage stamps, water-mark-
ed prohibition papers, whisky and
champagne bottle labels and bogus
drug and liquor permits.
% Held in Dragnet
Raids in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Long
Island City and New Jersey resulted
in % arrests in the last "a hours and
ended successfully an eight months
search for the international gang
leaders, Joseph A. Palma, chief Of the
special service squad of the internal
revenue department, announced. Thir-
ty-six prisoners had been taken in
secret raids during the last two weeks,
bringing the total to Sd.
The raided places, Palma said, were
stocked with bundles of $4,000 in
counterfeit American money, tens of
thousands of dollars worth of postage
stamps, whiskey labels, revenue
stamps and bogus coins, as well as
piles of memoranda, moulds and dies
and a number Of engraving boards.
Some Bonds are $4,000
TWenty-fOur of TUESDAYS roundup
victims were arraigned before FEEDER
al Commissioner Hitchcock Wednes-
day and held in bail ranging from
$4,000 to $4,000. Three were sent to
Newark, N. j., for arraignment.
The cOunterfeiters, Palma as
serted, were closely associated
with trafickers in drugs and IL
licit rum. They bought huge
quantities of drugs and liquor
from smugglers and re-sOId the
cOntrabrand in American cities
while they paid the smugglers
with the counterfeit money.
Palma declared thousands of dol
lars in bogus money found its way
into foreign ports, especially in Cuba
and the West Indies, through mem
bers of the boat crews in the rum
fleet from alien ports which sojourned
off the New Jersey coast for nearly
a month.
The headquarters and manufacture
ing plant Of the gang, Palma report
ed, was in a basement at 20 Cornelia
street. There We're seven wholesale
distributing agencies in New York
City and surrounding territory, the
principal one, Broom street, a stones
throw from police headquarters.
The traffic was organized on an
elaborate business basis with whole
salers and their agents, retailers and
their agents, hired gunner and liasion
officers. Each branch of the trade
operated independently, the necessary
contacts being maintained through the
liason officers.
Italian and Jewish colonies were
said by the secret service agents to
have been the particular victims of
the counterfeiters, who with few ex-
ceptions, were themselves of Italian
and southern European origin.
Investigation of the activities of the
gang, Palma explained, began late in
August, when the treasury depart
ment decided to suppress reported
traffic in bogus money.
Guarded by Gunner
Palma said that when the supposed
sources Of supply we're traced to New
York, it was discovered that each
place was guarded by a score of
gunner, most of them ex-convicts.
Agents surreptitiously bought bogus