A “RED” CABINET OPENED

Hokitika Guardian, 9 January 1925, Page 4

A “RED” CABINET OPENED

EVERYTHING FOR FORGING PASSPORTS BERLIN, Gel,-her 21. By the courtesy of the chief of the Berlin police, says the Berlin correspondent of (he “ Daily Mail,” I have been able to examine the contents of a Bolshevist cabinet of mystery whi*-li was seized when the secret passport bureau of the German Communists ar a suburb of Berlin was raided by the police a lew days ago. Ihe cabinet contained ."verything necessary for providing (’ninmimist s with false passports ami visas to go to any part of the world. (In the top shelf were bottles of chemicals and a quantity of blank German and Danzig passports, forged or stolen, which were ready to he tidied in and furnished with the necessary photographs and visas. 1 was shown a Swiss passport with which, 1 was told. Until Fischer, the Bolshevist agitator and member of Hie Reichstag, had gone to England to attend a meeting of the British Communist Party. There, sure enough, was Ruth’s photograph, hut she had turned herself into an innocent, Swiss school (‘-aiher . Rale, Switzerland. STOLEN DOCUMENTS.

In tin* cabinet Mere a number of files, each with the name of a country. The British tile contained, among other things, a genuine British passport, doubtless lost by its owner or stolen from him. Il Imre the number AA. I!l(>, and was issued on June of ibis year to .John Bcnilford.* horn a I Smil.hamii ton en February 2. IS'!. Mr Brail f.0.1N |A* i. I. .gra i'li had been l.ilom oul. and I lie passport Has ie:ul\ lor I lie m sort inn of the photograph of a Communist, who could pass himself elf as an Englishman of 111.

A»ioilift* interesting liritisli (loctiu'iPiit which might have heen useful to u Bolshevist agitator desiring to work in England was the blue-hound certificate (No. 32.1 1:1) of a regular Naval Reserve seaman. Its proper owner is John Cargill, 35. Brim ess-street, Dundee, horn on November 26, 1863. Perhaps it had not heen used because its owner would have tu get tattooed two flags oil one arm and a cross and initials on the other lo ii>.aintain the holiest liritisli sailor’s part. Hundreds of official rubber stamps wen* in the cabinet. Among them was the visa of the liritisli Consulate at Rale. with which, no doubt, Ruth Fischer's visa for England was forged. F.verv sort of German official stamp was in the collection including the permanent visa to go in and out of Delmany. and. most valuable of all. the stamp of the Finance Bureau to indicate Ihal one has paid one’s taxes. HELPING “RED’’ SPIES. The value of these stamps was that with them it was possible to give the holder of a passport a forged pass—to stamp a Polish passport, lor .nslani-e, with a stamp of the Polish Consulate at Paris or Buenos Aire:', which were both in the collection and so permit the holder to conceal the fact that lie had really been acting as agent of the Cheka i Bolshevist temu is ts) ill Moscow. One of the Russian stamps was that of the organisation for helping Russian refugees, and could serve to provide papers for Bolsheviks desiring to spy on their vietinis. So perfect was the Bolshevist organisation that, there were found stamps for making postmarks—the Brooklyn stamp, for instance, useiitl for stamping t* ll v .opes ol letters forged to conceal the identity of the. person carrying them. A genuine Japanese passport and a stamp with the words “ British Army of the Rhino Circulation ” wore two other interesting exhibits. German Communists act under strict orders front Moscow, and it is probable that many of the stamps and documents were furnished lrom the headquarters in the Kremlin. The two young men who ran the Bureau, passing themselves off as architects, have escaped, and may now he on the staff of some other bureau.