page_title: 1873 Bank of England forgeries
section_title: Crime
hierarchical_section_title: 1873 Bank of England forgeries / Crime
caption_attribution_description: English: An example of a bill of exchange from 1873 England. First published in "Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison Fifteen Years in Solitude", copyrighted 1897 by Bidwell Publishing Company, Hartford, Conn.
context_page_description: From 21 January to 28 February 1873, four American con-artists defrauded the Bank of England of £102,217, equivalent to nearly £10 million in 2015.
  The four men responsible for the Bank of England forgeries, brothers George and Austin Bidwell, George MacDonnell and Edwin Noyes were convicted at the Old Bailey and sentenced to life imprisonment.
  The discovery of the crime, and the subsequent investigations and trials, received widespread attention at the time, with the London Times describing it as one of the "most skillful attempts to prey upon the complex organization of modern commerce."
context_section_description: The scam began with Austin Bidwell setting up a deposit account with a branch of the Bank of England under the pretense of opening a pullman car manufacturing business in the region, so as not to raise suspicion of his large financial transactions. For months prior to the fraud, Bidwell behaved as an ordinary customer, depositing genuine bills that had been secured by George Bidwell and MacDonnell into the account. Then from 21 January to 28 February 1873, the group forged and cashed over 94 bills of exchange worth over £100,000, which were then transferred to the Continental Bank. Noyes acted as the delivery man for the group, exchanging the funds obtained from the forged cheques for US bonds and gold.
caption: An 1873 bill of exchange, England.
exif: {}