FORGED PASSPORTS
A CONTINENTAL GANG
(By Air Mail, from "The Post's" London
Representative.)
LONDON, September 1
The arrest in Boulogne of a German refugee, who tried to reach London with a false passport to join his wife and children, has put the French police on the track of a Paris gang specialising in forged passports. Hans Hirschfeld —the refugee—aged 35, a Jewish business man in Berlin, fled to Vienna when Hitler came to power. When the Nazis marched into Austria he fled again. He came to England with his wife and son. "They were admitted, but he was sent back, and went to Paris.
Last Friday Hirschfeld met an Austrian refugee in Paris and bought from him a passport for £12 in the name of Van Taussig, tradesman. He reached Folkestone again, but immigration officers refused to allow him in England. He was sent back to Boulogne. Questioned by the French police, he confessed that he used a false passport.
In an alleged statement, the man said that he once owned a factory in Berlin employing 200 people, but the German authorities confiscated all his possessions.
From the man's statement the French police believe that they are on the track of remnants of a gang of passport traffickers, most of whom were rounded up earlier this year. Then, after months of activity by the French and British police and immigration officials, 24 people, mostly Poles and Hungarians, were arrested.
After these arrests the gang broke up. The present unrest in Central Europe has prompted members to reform the gang and start activities afresh.
The,re have, however, been only isolated cases of foreigners arriving in this country with faked passports. In almost every case the person concerned has been turned back at the port of entry by an immigration officer who has noticed the forgery.
.The authorities believe that the passport faking organisation has an agency in this country, but in spite of investigation by specially-selected Scotland Yard men, no evidence has been obtained,
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19381004.2.87
Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 82, 4 October 1938, Page 12
Word Count
333FORGED PASSPORTS Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 82, 4 October 1938, Page 12
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