BASE COIN FRAUD IN EGYPT.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1025, 19 January 1882, Page 4

BASE COIN FRAUD IN EGYPT.

A London pader says : —The criminals of the present day are quite equal to their predecessors in atrocity of act and fertility of resource, whilst the public show themselves as gullible and the police at least as incapable as their predecessors. A. system of plunder has lately come to light which for boldness and originality of conception, skill in execution, and the magnitude of the evil which will result from its success, will, we hope, long remain without a parallel. Some men of good position have lately been arested at Geneva upon the extraordinary charge of having for about 20 years manufactured base coin, which they and their confederates have circulated in very large amounts in Egypt and other parts of the East, as well as in Europe, The false pieces were made nominally as women’s ornaments; and to disarm suspicion and avoid examination at custom-houses, they were declared boldly as “ bullion,” upon which the highest duty is charged. They were made of platinum, aliout a tenth below the regulation sizes, and then thickly gilt; and being well finished, and in look size and weight up to the eastern standard, they did not attract adverse attention. In Egypt, as in India, the ryots invest their savings in coins strung in necklaces, with which they ornament their wives and daughters, and the fabricators took advantage of this practice and sent their spurious work into the country as necklaces. However, about 8 or 10 years ago the Egyptian Government tound that counterfeit money was coming into the country, but the only effort to stop it was a prosecution which came to nothing (at which few who know the country will be surprised), and the work went on as fast as ever. Finally, a clerk in the employ of the confederates at Geneva tound out their secret, and demanded a share of the plunder, which being refused, in the belief that the laws of Geneva would not touch them, he went to Alexandra and enlightened the Egyptian Government, who soon took such energetic measures that several of tire suspected parties have been anested. The discovery of this plot has spread such a panic that the Government will be compelled to issue a new coin to restore confidence, as the interior of the country is inundated with the counterfeits.