SECRET PROCESS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 724, 27 December 1933, Page 3

SECRET PROCESS

BANKS LOSE THOUSANDS BY CLEYER FORGER'S METHODS London, Nov. 11. ■Secret methods for altering and forging cheques were mentioned at th'e Old Bailey when two men alleged to he members of a gangi which had victimised hanks in London and the provinces to the extent of thousands of pounds appeared before Judge Whiteley, K.C. Yictor Bakker, aged 30, a pastry cook, pleaded guilty to receiving letiters and forgery, and Arthur George Cooley, aged 32, an auxiliary postman, to stealing letters. Mt. Gerald Dodson, prosecuting, said Bakker was a professional forger, and since January, 1932 had been the penman of a gang which perpetrated frauds on a large scale. (Letteris contaifiing cheques were collected with' the assistance of men like Cooley, who handed them over to Bakker, his "master." Wlhen Bakker had maStered the signatures on the chques orders for ■cheque books were tforged, but when •that became difficult owing to the suspicions of the banks, Bakker and his friends enlarged their activities to housebreaking and robberies so as to get possession of cheque books. Mr. Dodson explained that Bakker had a special liquid for erasing crossings on cheques, the ingredients of which were known only to him. Detective Inspector Copley said that two memibers of the gang had been sentenced at the Old Bailey some months ago, and their arrest had ibroken up the organisation. Since Baklcer's arrest the frauds had stopped.