Yunnanese Sentenced in French Mixed Court for Forging -Chartered Bank Notes For passing more than a score and a half of forged bank notes on money changers in the French Concession, Zen Kuo-zic, 34 years old, extremely well drossed, a native of Yunnan, was sentenced to-two years' hard labour and deportation from the Concession by the French Mixed Court last Friday morning.
In his defence Zen stated that he had obtained the notes, which were those issued by the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, in Canton, but refused to admit that he had any accomplices either here or in the southern port. The notes, which were Hongkong currency, bad been most ingeniously altered from $5 to $50 by the simple expedient of adding a cipher. A similar change was made on $10 notes, raising them to $160. A corresponding alteration had been made in the Chinese figures, but the forger had neglected either to erase or-change the lettered denominations which appeared in the watermark.
The prisoner's method of passing the counterfeit money was decidedly profitable, since in addition to receiving the new face value of the note, the money changers paid him the premium on Hongkong currency which fluctuated between five and eight per cent.
He arrived in Shanghai on December 28 and within five days succeeded in passing 23 counterfeit notes of $100. Returning to Canton without delay he secured ten more notes of similar denominations and came back to Shanghai to renew his operations. Each time he chose a different money changer. He was arrested on January 23 in the act of attempting to secure the exchange on nine more $50 notes, but unfortunately for Zen this last money changer read the English lettered denominations of the watermark. _During his preliminary examination by French detectives, Zen
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.