Fakes, Scams & Forgeries

Brian Innes trained as a scientist and worked as a biochemical researcher before turning to writing. He published a large number of articles and books on forensic science. He died in 2014.

Section 1: Funny Money
The production of counterfeit coinage is as old as the first introduction of money: archeologists have discovered forged coins that were manufactured as much as three thousand years ago. The practice continued well into the twentieth century, but has now been largely superseded by the printing of counterfeit travellers’ cheques, banknotes, and stamps.
After a brief survey of coin counterfeiting (and the penalties the counterfeiters suffered), this section will detail the techniques employed in forging security documents, from the earliest fake banknotes, laboriously engraved by hand, to the modern use of photolithography.
Treasury experts have been unremitting in their attempts to develop documents that could not be copied, such as employing special papers, watermarks, the use of more than one printing process, and the incorporation of metallic strips and foils; but the forgers have been equally ingenious in finding ways round these obstacles, producing banknotes and cheques that look and feel, superficially, like ‘the real thing’. A selection of outstanding cases will provide details of their methods. This section also covers cryptocurrency.
Among major stories covered in this section will be:
Artur Alves Reis – forger of 60 million escudos of Portuguese banknotes
Charles Black – printed $2 million a month
Stephen Jorey – credited with £50 million forged notes

Section 2: Fake Art
Although there is evidence that some works of antiquity, believed at the time to be the work of a well- known sculptor, were in fact produced by another, unknown, hand, the deliberate production of fake work really dates from the seventeenth century, when collectors began to buy up art treasures from dealers or others, many of whom were far from scrupulous.
This is, in fact, a distinctly grey area. At that time, many artists employed assistants and apprentices in their studios, themselves putting in perhaps only a few finishing touches, and signing the work as their own. Is a painting by Botticelli, for example, to which he added only a few folds of drapery, to be considered ‘a genuine Botticelli’?
The plot thickens when another artist produces an original work – but exactly in the style of a well-known artist. This is a fake, and experts down the years have quarrelled over the question of attribution. Should the faking artist sign the work with the other artist’s name, or make a copy of an existing work, this is an act of forgery. And should he then sell it, or a dealer knowingly offer it for sale, fraud, a criminal offence, has been committed.
Works of art covered in this section:
The figure of sleeping Cupid, allegedly by Michelangelo
The fake sculptures of Giovanni Bastianini
The ‘antique’ coins of Carl Wilhelm Becker
The ‘restored’ frescoes of Lothar Malskat

Among the modern fakers and forgers detailed:
Van Meegeren – and the ‘Vermeers’ he sold to the Nazis
Tom Keating – and his ‘Sexton Blakes’
Elmyr de Hory – probably the most successful art faker of modern times

Section 3: False Papers
The ‘discovery’ of unknown works of literature has a long history. William Henry Ireland produced a wealth of Shakespeare documents, including two new dramas, in 1795. John Payne Collier was another forger of documents related to Shakespeare. Earlier, William Lauder had claimed that Milton’s Paradise Lost had been plagiarised from the work of other poets, much of which he invented. In 1773, James Macpherson published his ‘translations’ from the Gaelic of the poet Ossian, which achieved great popular acclaim. About the same time, Rudolf Erich Raspe published the first edition of his imaginary Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
But many of these were fakes, rather than forgeries. The most notorious forger of antique documents was Thomas J. Wise, a distinguished late nineteenth century collector of old books. Three years before his death in 1937 – and after his collection had been sold to the British Museum – it was revealed that many of the books he had sold to other collectors were blatant forgeries.
Denis Vrain-Lucas (1818-88) faked a huge quantity of autograph papers, ranging from a letter from Alexander the Great to Aristotle, and a letter from Mary Magdalene, to a ‘proof’ that Blaise Pascal had discovered gravitation fifty years before Isaac Newton.
More recent forgers of documents – with huge sums expected for their sale:
Konni Kujau – forger of the Hitler diaries
Clifford Irving – forger of the memoirs of millionaire Howard Hughes
Mark Hoffman – forger of Mormon documents, and the Oath of a Freeman

Section 4: Phony Prehistory
The most famous fraud in paleontology is the Piltdown skull, which for fifty years was believed to represent a vital ‘missing link’ between the apes and modern mankind. There have been others, however. During the nineteenth century, itinerant Edward Simpson, who became known as ‘Flint Jack’, sold fake flint arrowheads, primitive icons, seals and inscribed stones. It is relatively recently that a set of cave paintings, seemingly prehistoric, was revealed as the work of modern schoolboys. And a decision has yet to be reached about the strange hoard unearthed at Glozel, France, in 1924.

Section 5: Bogus Identity
The cases of Martin Guerre and Kaspar Hauser have puzzled historians for centuries. More recently, the claim to the Tichborne estate, and the possibility that Anna Andersen could be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, have been the subjects of innumerable books and several films. There are many other similar cases.
This section will also look into the matter of identity theft, which has recently attracted widespread press attention. How easily it can be carried out is exemplified in Frederick Forsyth’s novel The Day of the Jackal.

Section 6: The Confidence Tricksters
False identities are often adopted by confidence tricksters. Among the principal cases to be described: ‘Count’ Victor Lustig - the man who sold the Eiffel Tower, twice.
Harry Domela – who successfully passed himself off as the Kaiser’s grandson
‘Yellow Kid’ Weil – whose best-known ‘scam’ became the film The Sting
Cyril Hoskins – who became the Lama Lobsang Rampa
Hayden Haitana – changed the identity, not of himself, but of a racehorse

Section 7: Faking for a Cause
Not all fakes and forgeries are made for profit, or even for fun. Some are made deliberately to support a cause or a belief. During World War II, for example, the opposing sides produced all sorts of forged documents, some to protect agents working undercover, and some aimed at undermining enemy morale. Then there are the religious forgeries, from the ‘Protocols of Zion’ to the Turin Shroud. This section also looks at the Cottingley Fairies, a hoax perpetrated by two young girls, which completely fooled Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes.

Section 8: Suspect Science
A smattering of technical terms can often persuade the man-in-the-street of the most outrageous claims. Albert Abrams, whose ‘Dynamizer’ and ‘Oscilloclast’ made him over $2 million in the 1920s, was described by the American Medical Association as ‘the dean of all 20th century charlatans’. And there was the mysterious ‘black box’ of the 1950s, among many others.
More serious, however, is when a qualified scientist fakes his experimental records – possibly the most notorious case being that of Paul Kammerer and the midwife toad.
This section also covers Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos scandal.