STAMP FRAUD

Gisborne Times, Volume LXV, Issue 10305, 14 January 1927, Page 2

STAMP FRAUD

—.- EXTENSIVE OPERATIONS. FORGERY FEARED. The most gigantic stamp fraud ever perpetrated in England lias come to light with the discovery that £300,090 worth of health insurance and postage stamps, which may bo forgeries, are being hawked about the country in parcels of £SO worth and sold at a - reduced figure. Nearly £250,000 worth of health insurance stamps and betweep £4O, 000 and £59,000 of ordinary postage stamps are being hawked about mainly in London, “at reduced prices” and Scotland Yard officials are looking for the gang which has perpetrated the fraud on the public. In the opinion of the authorities the stamps have been either stolen from a parcel of defective stamps which were stored prior to being destroyed, or else they have been forged in large quantities. In the latter case the question of watermarking in the paper arises. The face value of the parcels of stamps being hawked is in the neighbourhood of £SO apiece. Members of the gang state that, they have £40,000 worth to sell, and are not allotted to sell less than £SO worth at a time. They offer these parcels at prices which make a tempting bargain for the buyers. At Somerset House it is claimed that theft from the stores would be. an impossibility, which points to the conclusion that all these stamps :ae forgeries. The hawkers are operating mainlv in the West- End ol London, hut some members of the gang have also, appeared in the provinces .In the case of forgeries of rare stamps tho forger's task is simplified by the fact that it is possible to prepare the bogus specimens in one country and dispose of them in another.

Finns interested in circularising, and mail-order businesses especially, are among those who have been offered stamps at a reduced price by the gang. A.s a rule, 10 per cent, discount is offered. Specimens of the stamps haye been displayed in a- club largely patronised by snorting men, one of whom, after a brief inspection of the samples, declared that they were rank forgeries.