FRAUD IN SYDNEY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5138, 13 June 1927, Page 3

FRAUD IN SYDNEY.

A MAN WITH A CHEQUE BOOK.

DARING PROVES UNDOING.

A man who obtained nearly £5OO from big Sydney firms during the last few weeks by forged cheques and false pretences had three great assets : A good apparanee-, personality, and daring. He possessed too much daring, however, and became so bold in the end that he fell into the hands of detectives.

It is a puzzle to the public how shrewd business men accept cheques from men they do not know. Many such cases have been reported lately. They have been given publicity, but the practice still goes on. The case- which resulted in an arrest being made, by Detectives H. Thompson, Sedgewick, Clarke-, and Geldart, is one of the most remarkable of its kind. It is said that a man visited many city firms grid purchased articles, including a suit of clothes, silks, and other material. He always presented cheques, and as he was able to tell a plausible story, they were generally accepted. Nearly all the cheques were made out for a big figure, and the man received change in cash. As well as passing forged cheques the man made money by obtaining goods on credit and selling them again. In one instance he sold a. valuable cash register a few hours after he received it from a firm on credit, by pretending that he was a business man.

For some time the detectives could find no trace of the man who was duping many business people, but they got on his track in the end, after obtaining a description of a suspect. They ari'etsed a man who, it is said, was caught in the act of hiding a cheque book on a ledge in a room of a city building.