Part 6 (2/2)
”Nothing easier,” was the reply. ”The fact that checks stamped with the amount in perforated characters are considered safe aids the swindler. Really, to beat the perforations is so easy that it will make you smile. All the outfit that is needed is a common little punch with a.s.sorted small cutting tubes and a bottle of an invisible glue that every crook can make or that he can buy in certain places that every crook knows. Now, here is a check stamped in perforated characters $300$. I take my little punch and fit into it a cutter that will punch holes of the same size as the holes in the perforations.
”Now I punch out of the edge of the check a few tiny disks. I moisten the tip of a needle and press them carefully into the holes that make the upper part of the figure 3. See, even in my haste and without glue, they fill the perforations completely and I can shake and pull the check without disturbing them.”
It was true. The little plugs fitted perfectly, and even with the knowledge that they were there it was almost impossible to see where they had been inserted.
”Now,” continued the expert, ”I merely take my punch and carefully punch enough holes to the right of the upper part of the figure 3 to make it a 5. And there you are. If I wanted to pa.s.s this check through the bank I would only have to complete the job by smearing a drop of the invisible glue over the back where I have plugged the original holes. This glue is wonderfully tenacious and will actually hold the edges of paper together. It needs only the smallest surface in order to get hold. After it is on not even the microscope could detect it readily. And no amount of pulling or shaking of the check will disturb it.
”You may suppose that a check that is stamped this way, for instance--$600$--would be hard to change into one of four figures. But it is almost equally easy. The crook simply punches out enough disks from the edge to fill up the last dollar mark completely, and after he has plugged it and the glue is dry he punches a cipher into the place and then punches a dollar mark after it. Of course, after punching the little disks out of the edge of the check it is necessary to trim that part of the paper, but that is done readily, for checks always have ample margin.
”The check-raiser does not depend on the fact that the scrutiny of checks in a large bank is bound to be hasty, but he knows that he need not fear if his work is at all well done, for the paying teller simply cannot spend much time in examining the many checks that are pa.s.sed in.
”One New York City bank sends through the clearing-house daily an average of 3,100 checks, and as there are about sixty-five such banks in the clearinghouse the total number of checks handled in the few hours of business in a day is something enormous.
”It is this haste--which, by the way, is absolutely necessary in order to keep the books posted to date--that is responsible for the pa.s.sing of one of the most peculiar checks that ever came under the notice of the detectives of America. In this case the check was neither falsified nor was the signature forged, but it was bogus just the same.
”It was a check made up of the parts of two checks, and all the implements necessary for falsification were a pair of scissors and that invisible glue. The clever swindler had got hold of two genuine checks from the same bank. One was for $1,000 and the other for $70.
Placing these two checks together, one on top of the other, he cut them through neatly with the scissors. Then he pasted that portion bearing the word 'seventy' on the one check to that part bearing the word 'thousand' on the other. So the composite check read to pay to the holder 'seventy thousand' dollars. As the cutting was made through both checks in exactly the same place, the edges fitted perfectly.
They were glued together and the check readily pa.s.sed the bank cas.h.i.+er. The man was caught and made rest.i.tution without publicity, but the case gave bankers a shock. Other somewhat similar cases are known, but none involving such a large amount.
”A famous case was the celebrated Seaver fraud. He bought a draft for $12 from the Bank of Woodland (Cal.), and, although it was written on chemical 'safety' paper and perforated in two places with a check punch, he raised it to $12,000, and it was pa.s.sed successfully and paid.
”But however successful they may be for a time, it is the fatal hoodoo of this 'most gentlemanly' way of making a living without earning it that a forgery is always discovered and the forger generally caught.
That is because the forged check remains in existence and must be paid by some one, and sooner or later there will be an outcry. The best the raiser can hope for is to escape before the crime is discovered.
”Once the false check is pa.s.sed and he has the money, his first idea is as to where he shall hide. Another fatality attaching to his peculiar business is that the same place that he thinks of flying to is the place that suggests itself to the mind of the thief-chaser. In other words, knowing their man, the man-hunters can guess well where to find him.
”If a forger wants to bury himself, he thinks of South America, because it is easy to get there, and apparently out of the world.
Then, of South America, he probably only thinks of Venezuela, or closer home--of Guatemala or Panama. So the South American hunt is simplicity itself, as there are not so many large ports that strange Americans can pa.s.s through unnoticed.
”If a forger wants to continue in his crooked business he thinks of London, Paris, Berlin, and maybe Vienna. We guess at his calibre and whether he wants more money, and know where he probably will go to get it, for the professional crook has an international acquaintance, and he only goes among friends. So we follow him.
”If a forger is an adventurous spirit and committed the crime on impulse, and we could learn absolutely nothing more about him, we would look in that Mecca of adventurers, South Africa, for him. In fact, our first business is to learn what kind of a man he is, then shut our eyes and guess which one of a few places he will fly to. The guess often is so good that our men await him when the steamer lands there. If not, we don't forget the sailing vessels.”
CHAPTER X
THUMB-PRINTS NEVER FORGED
Thumb-Print Method of Identification Absolute--Now Brought to a High State of Perfection--Will Eventually Be Used in All Banks--Certified Checks and Also Drafts with Thumb-Print Signatures--Absolute Accuracy of a Thumb-Print Identification a.s.sured--A Thumb-Print in Wax on Sealed Packages--Its Use an Advantage on Bankable Paper of All Kinds--How Strangers Are Easily Identified--Bankers, Merchants and Business Men Protected by This System--Full Particulars as to How Thumb-Prints Are Made--Can be Printed by Anyone in a Few Minutes--How and When to Place Your Thumb-Print on Bankable Paper--Finger-Prints as Reliable as Thumb-Prints--Use to Which This System Could Be Put--Thumb and Finger Tips Do Not Change From Birth to Death--Department of Justice at Was.h.i.+ngton Has Established a Bureau of Criminal Registry Using the Thumb-Print System--Thumb-Print System Said to Be a Chinese Invention--Its Use Spreading Rapidly--How to Secure Thumb-Print Impression Without Knowledge of Party--An Interesting and Valuable Study.
How to detect the forger as one of the cleverest of operating criminals has been solved by the ”thumb-print” method of identification, now spreading throughout the banks, business houses and public offices of the world.
It is quite as interesting as the suggestion that through the same thumb-print method in commercial and banking houses the forger is likely to become a creature without occupation and chirographical means of support. R.W. McClaughry, chief of the bureau of identification in the federal prison at Leavenworth, Kan., is one of the most expert in the thumb-print method of identification in this country, having been schooled at Scotland Yards in London, where the method first was brought to its present state of perfection. Mr. McClaughry sees for the system not only a great aid in preventing the forgeries of commercial brigands but the easiest of all means for a person in a strange city to identify himself as the lawful possessor of check, or note, or bank draft which he may wish to turn into cash at a banker's window.
Thumb-print signatures will eventually be used in all banks as a means of identification. It will be a sure preventative of forgery. For instance: A maker of a check desiring to take a trip around the world shall draw a check for the needed sum and, in the presence of the cas.h.i.+er of his bank, place one thumb-print in ink somewhere in one spot on the check--perhaps over the amount of the check as written in figures. Thereupon the cas.h.i.+er of the bank will accept the check as certified by his inst.i.tution. With this paper in his possession the drawer of the check may go from his home in New York to San Francisco, a stranger to every person in the city. But at the window of any bank in that city, presenting his certified check to a teller who has a reading gla.s.s at his hand, the stranger may satisfy the most careful of banks by a mere imprint of his thumb somewhere else upon the face of the check.
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