SHAM £5 NOTES.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18891, 5 January 1927, Page 7

SHAM £5 NOTES.

MELBOURNE PLOT.

THREE MEN ARRESTED.

(fsoh om owtt coßaiwoKßEjrr.J

SYDNEY, December 80.

The most complete plans to issue counterfeit notes discovered in Australia for many years are alleged to have been uncovered by Melbourne detectives recently, after a month's investigations. Plant for the manufacture of the notes was found in a chemist's shop at •Caulfield, a suburb of Melbourne, and three men were arrested, including the owner of the shop. Aoout a month ago the Criminal Investigation Branch learnt that preparations were being made in one of the suburbs for the production of counterfeit notes on a large scale. Two detectives were detailed to make enquiries, and after a few days they succeeded in bbtaining possession of two partially-completed counterfeit £5 notes. It was also learnt that it was the intention of the counterfeiters to pass off at first about 1000 of the notes. The detectives gradually narrowed their lines of enquiry until they discovered where a counterfeit plant was installed, and they kept it under observation for several days. Chemist'a Shop Raided. Two parties of detectives raided the chemist s shop, one through the front door and the other through the back. Both parties rushed into a back room, where there were two men. One, it is alleged, was turning a handle connected with a metal roller, which moved backwards and forwards over a marble slab. The mechanism was so arranged that, as the roller turned, the marble slab moved automatically in the same direction. Examining the apparatus later, tho detectives found etched a few inches apart on the marble slab copies of the face and back of a £5 note. In a search of the room, they found a large number of sheets of the paper somewhat similar to that used in the making of genuine notes, and cut to the size of a £5 note. Printed in orange capitals in the centre of many of the sheets was the word "Five." Several of the sheets had printed on one side a copy of the face of a £6 note. Close scrutiny, it is said, revealed that the copy differed in only one particular from a genuine note —one tetter is a small line of print at the bottom of the note was misplaced. Also found in the room were many tins, bottles, and jars of dyes and inks, a second marble slab considerably smeared with green and black ink, and a book entitled "Practical Lithography." The three men arrested were Lance Phillip Skelton, aged 24 years, signwriter; John Franois Gilligan, a-ged 25 years, chemist; and Roy Horatio Osfcberg, aged 29 years, paper merchant. They were released on bail, and when they were scheduled to appear in Court the following day, Gilligan was missing. His bail was estreated and a warrant was issued for his arrest, but he has not yet been apprehended.