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Show COUNTERFEITERS Fake Money Floods U.S. WASHINGTON. Two huge counterfeit coun-terfeit rings, one In New York and one in Chicago, are flooding the nation na-tion with bogus $10 and $20 bills representing millions of dollars. Disclosure of the existence of two rings was made by the Secret Service Serv-ice after the Federal Reserve Bank of New York announced that a "substantial "sub-stantial number" of nearly perfect copies of bank notes were circulated throughout the Greater New York area in the biggest counterfeiting operation In the United States In 14 years. Bank officials warned shoppers, merchants and commercial banks to watch sharply for the bogus bills. Rings Are Separate The New York bank officials said fake money also had been found in Chicago, but a secret service spokes-man spokes-man here said there was no connection connec-tion between the two operations. He said the $10 and $20 bills passed out by the Chicago gang are not like those discovered in New York. If the two rings were working together, togeth-er, there would be no point In their using different plates with which to print their "money." The Secret Service said the spurious spur-ious New York bills had not been circulated beyond the New York area as far as it knew, but the Chicago ring had outlets In nearly all parts of the country. The Chicago gang was said to have been active for several months. mon-ths. At first its product was found only in the Midwest. However, evidence evi-dence of its operations has been found in Pacific Coast States, along the entire Eastern Seaboard and In the South. Relatively little of the bogus money had turned up In Chicago, officials said. Two passers were under arrest, but the ring can not be broken until the printing machinery ma-chinery is discovered. While the New York bills bear the symbol of the Chicago Federal Reserve stamp, printed in Chicago, a Secret Service spokesman said. First In New York The federal reserve bank in New York said commercial banks were taking daily losses from receipts of the fake bills. The counterfeit currency cur-rency first was detected In New York when employees of the reserve re-serve bank there were sorting notes issued originally In Chicago for return re-turn to Chicago. The commercial banks which sent the fake money to the Federal reserve re-serve bank, not realizing that It was no good, were "out" the amount represented, a spokesman for the New York federal reserve said. He said that the member commercial banks were losing money every day because they could not trace the counterfeit currency. He said the "money" has been turning up in substantial quantities in New York. He declined to reveal how much had been found, but said fake money had been coming In every ev-ery day. Officials estimated the amount of bogus money In the hands of the public might run in to "millions of dollars." They said the last big counterfeiting ring, operated by "Count" Victor Lustig in 1944. flooded flood-ed the midwest with $2,500,000. |