THEFT OF £l000.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 November 1923, Page 4

THEFT OF £looo.

ALLEGED PENSION FRAUDS. WELLINGTON, November 2. The disappearance of a former Government employee, and the .subsequent polite investigations, in view of losses tot nil ling about £I9OO, was recently reported, Hint it is announced by the “New Zealand Times” that the eiii fi:il in question was an ex-temporary employee of the Pensions Depai tmont, but was not employed in that Department when the fergeiie.s were committed. nor for some time previously. It is alleged that the individual in question purloined upwards of 15(1 pension warrants, together with an office stamp, and deliberately set out to rai-e money by forgery. He. operated in several towns in the Wellington and Auckland districts, and a.s the forged warrants were not sent by the Post Office to the Pensions Department for some time after being cashed. tlte purloiiier had plenty of time to make good his escape from the Dominion. At each post office visited by the culprit lie presented a pension warrant properly tilled in. signed and countersigned with forged signatures, sufficiently resembling those of the originals to deceive the Post- Office officials who. at most, see such signatures only once a month, and cannot he expected to scrutinise thorn too closely or to question their bona fides. A week's travelling and much expert ]rn jiggling brought the man to Auckland. Here his operations lasted two days, hut several suburban post offices have recollections of his visit, for front them he secured CSLO anti no questions asked. He had evidently laid It is plans carefully and according to schedule he departed for Sydney by boat, leaving about ten days after the opening of his campaign.

He reached Sydney and was swallowed up for at least three weeks before the pension warrants began to trickle in to headquarters. It took the pension authorities a fortnight to trace the author of tlte worthless paper, which gave him still more time to go further afield. However, ns the accused has a wife and child in Sydney the police arc hopeful that they will be able eventually to tap him on the shoulder.