European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - August 13, 1959, Darmstadt, Hesse Gift to i t or. Lange cd psf urys a lowly Dollar Bill raised to tic not Fay Thel of s6me extra is you t get Rich making Money is but in spite of the poor Odds people still try and Banks have to be watchful by Jack Walters staff writer Germany a Money detective turns put p phony Kank note on the portable press by notorious Herr of 1 Vij t of All the crimes that do not pay counterfeiting nets possibly the least gain. The illegal making of Money is one of the oldest crimes against a Sovereign state and its seriousness is Best express Din the fact that at times counterfeiting has carried death penalties for offenders. A nation s Prosperity tends to discourage counterfeiting. In the ., during the re covery from the great depression of the 1930s, counterfeiting reached its Peak with hundreds of thousands of dollars in bogus currency in circulation. Federal and local agents quickly put an end to it with the Aid of a revitalized Economy. Similarly in Western Europe Large scale counterfeiting has disappeared in the face of economic recovery after world War ii. In West Germany since it became one of the most prosperous nations the making of illegal Money is now a Small scale business but one which still bears close watching. Among those who do the watching is Lange a counterfeiting expert at the Deutsche Bundesbank Central banking institution in Frankfurt. Like other Centra banking agencies the Bundesbank is obligated by International agreement to keep constant Check of counterfeit and forged currency. The difference Between the two illegal kinds of tender Lange explained is that counterfeit Bills Are made whole whereas forged currency is the original stuff with the stated numerical values removed an higher ones inserted. Thus a one Dollar Bill in american currency can be made fairly easily into a 100-Dollar Bill if one Over looks the portrait of George Washington on the a note instead of Ben Franklin which the real one bears. The Only trouble Lange continued is that forged and counterfeit Money looks had just As Good Money looks Good. It Sone thing to make bad Money but quite another to pass it. Aside from the moral wrong involved counterfeiting is highly impractical As a Way of life. It s extremely hard in fact impossible for any length of time to get away with. Sooner or later whether a counterfeiter is a big time operator or an individual turning out a 100 Mark note once or twice a month he gets caught and the Penally is stiff a mini mum of two years at hard labor. Add to this the fact that it takes Tim and craftsmanship to turn out a creditable Job of counterfeiting weigh this against the almost certain Odds that it will end in a prison sentence and you have the reason Why counterfeiting does t pay " West Germany despite its Strong eco nomic comeback still cannot afford to manufacture its own currency the proc Ess involves a staggering Cost in equipment and organization. Therefore the And France Are now printing Germany s Legal tender the Making notes of the smaller denominations and France print ing the larger denominations on the thin Ner paper. Legal Money making techniques Are now extremely advanced and complicated thus rendering it More difficult than Ever for the counterfeiter to enjoy a Short lived Success. Lange s department works with inter pol the International police network and the Usa eur crime lab in Frankfurt. Every forger and counterfeiter has his own account with us he said. We have samples of their work from the first crude Bills they turn out to the More finished counterfeiters Are a different Breed from the average criminal Lange said. The usually avoid the violence and Force associated with Ordinary lawbreakers. Some counterfeiters Are skilled artists printers engravers and the like. An interesting Case in Point is that of. Herr x. Now deceased who enjoyed the reputation of having turned out the larg est amount of bogus currency in Germany in recent years-60,000 Marks. In appearance resembling a prosperous businessman Herr x had a Check ered career which carried him All Over Centra land Western Europe including several. Stays at various prominent jails. During the nazi regime he was hauled up for. Forging ration cards and other one of his prison sojourns he wooed and won the Warden s Beautiful daughter. His first attempts at counterfeiting we e crude but persevering at his illegal Art he eventually succeeded in turning out masterpieces of forged currency. One expert proclaimed them almost better than the real thing. Moving briskly from place to place and carrying All the equipment he needed Ina single suitcase. X kept police Busy until his final apprehension. He died in coins Are much easier to turn out. Because absence of detailed work but require special cheap Metal. Alloys and. Usually equipment too Bulky to be considered practical. The hardest thing to simulate in counterfeit coins is i their ring when dropped. Phony coins usually Don t ring they despite uie obvious bitter lesson to be Learned from Lange said some poor misguided deluded souls per Sist at it. Somewhere right now. A former Printer or engraver or an unsuccessful artist is spending hundreds of Man hours turning out notes of various denominations in the vain expectation that hell get by undetected. The Odds Are stacked against him. He can t win. If he works on just a few notes deter. Mined to quit once he passes them he lib find his labor has exceeded their value if he continues in order to make a profit from his expended labors he gets nabbed counterfeiting just does t pay the Futayo August 13, 195 the stars and stripes
