ALLEGED COUNTERFEITING.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 264, 5 October 1933, Page 2

ALLEGED COUNTERFEITING.

CHARGES AT WELLINGTON. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Oct. 4. Charges of uttering a counterfeit coin, making counterfeit coins and making three coining moulds were admitted in the Magistrate’s Court today by two men, William George Hart, aged 43, and William Babbage, aged 47, and they were committed by Mr Page, S.M., to the Supreme Court, for sentence. Evidence was to the effect that on receiving a complaint from a newsboy detectives watched in Lambton Quay and picked on and searched accused. They found coins and afterwards, at the place where they lived, more coins and apparatus for making them.

George Sargiff, a Russian, aged 43, pleaded not guilty to having in his possession three coining moulds, and was committed for trial. In this case evidence was given by the manager of a city cafe, where accused was in the habit of having meals, that accused brought a tin with a request that it be put in the oven and baked. He said it contained moulds for little statues.

An assistant at the cafe said that when accused brought the tin a second time lie was suspicious that there might be something dangerous in it and so .ho opened it and he found three double moulds, and inside one which he opened he found a two shilling piece. He reported the matter to the police. Detective Hayhurst said he found in Sargiff’s room a blow-lamp, plaster of pans, metals, copper wire, pliers and other .tools. In opposing bail, the police mentioned that accused was sentenced at Auckland last year to twelve months for being in possession of a bomb. The police said he was a foreigner with, strong tendencies against the betterment of the community. Bail was refused both in this case and in the case of the other two.