§ Captain Kerbyasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer. in view of his decision to mint golden sovereigns as a result of his study of reports of counterfeiting of such coins abroad, how many such reports came to his notice during the past ten years; what was the approximate sum involved in each year and in each counterfeiting case; how many counterfeiters were involved; and in what countries.
Mr. AmoryDuring the past ten years I have had notice of thirteen cases in which charges of counterfeiting gold sovereigns have been brought. The details are as follows:
1949 … 1 … Greece 1950 … 1 … Italy 1951 … 1 … Italy 1953 … 4 … Italy 1953 … 1 … Tangier 1954 … 1 … Italy 1954 … 1 … Australia 1955 … 1 … Switzerland 1955 … 1 … Lebanon 1956 … 1 … Italy In one of the cases which began in 1953 in Italy, some 3,800 counterfeit sovereigns were seized, in the others only a very few coins, but quantities of counterfeiting apparatus and in some cases bars of gold. The number of persons accused in these cases was forty-seven.
In addition, my officers have handled during the same period over twenty cases of trafficking in counterfeit sovereigns; according to an up to date check on the information supplied in connection with those cases, the circulation during the period of over 400,000 counterfeit sovereigns has been traced.