How We Track Down
Bond Thieves
When you buy a U.S. Savings Bond, you've put your money
in a safe place just ask the crooks who've stolen some
James . Rowley
By JAMES J. ROWLEY, Chief, United States Secret Service
was
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A dapper gentleman handed
several United States Sav
ings Bonds to a woman bank teller
in Louisville, Ky.
"I want to cash these," he said calmly.
"I'm with the Veterans Administration."
The ruse had worked before. Willis
Edwin Hirsch already had cashed and
forged 18 Savings Bonds in Mississippi.
Now his luck was about to run out. In
checking the Bonds, the lady cashier
noted what she thought were erasures.
"And I wonder why a Government of
ficial would cash these while traveling?"
she asked a superior.
By this time, however, Hirsch had be
come suspicious and fled. He didn't waste
time, though. Soon he appeared at a sec
ond Louisville bank with the same story.
He hovered nearby as a bank official took
the Bonds and made a telephone call to
the local Secret Service office of the U. S.
Treasury. Through the Secret Service,
the first bank already had broadcast an
alarm about the suspicious gentleman.
Hirsch caught enough of the conversation
to send him scurrying to Mexico.
W; didn't lose complete track of our
man, though. Soon Mexican authorities
were telling us Hirsch was in Tijuana,
then Acapulco. He was having a wonder
ful time on stolen money. And we? Well,
we had to wait patiently, but we knew
we'd have a showdown soon.
The Treasury Department sells about
85 to 90 million individual Savings
Bonds a year, totaling $4Vi billion. Right
now and until June 30, it is conducting a
Freedom Savings Drive, the biggest since
the Korean War. If you buy these Bonds,
you're putting money in one of the safest
investments. Most criminals leave Savings
Bonds behind while stealing jewelry and
negotiable securities. They have good rea
son; it's hard to cash Bonds, and if they
are cashed illegally, the Secret Service
starts a patient but endless hunt for the
criminals.
LATELY, some not-so-smart thieves have
I begun grabbing Savings Bonds not
much in relation to the total invested but
still amounting to hundreds of thousands
of dollars. Hirsch was one of these, and
his end is fairly typical.
A few weeks after his disappearance,
we got a telephone call from a bellhop in
a Laredo, Texas, hotel. "I saw a picture
-of this guy Hirsch," the bellhop told us.
"I think he just checked in here."
We sent two agents to the hotel to
check the tip. We didn't want to make
any mistakes, so the agents-first showed
Hirsch's photograph to waitresses in
the dining room. As they studied the
picture, a dapper, sun-tanned man strode
into the room. The agents spotted him
just as he realized who they were.
Our two agents already were on a
dead run across the dining room. Chairs
tumbled over, a table went crashing.
Hirsch made the lobby, scattering on
lookers in his fierce flight for freedom.
He got as far as the door when one of
the agents let loose a perfect flying
tackle. The two men slammed heavily onto
the floor.
Hirsch admitted cashing $67,000 worth
of bonds. In his luggage we found seven
$1,000 Bonds which had been stolen in
the Midwest. He claimed he had bought
them from the actual thieves. Hirsch is
now serving a 10-year term for forgery.
As I said, Savings Bonds are a safe
place for your money to grow, but
you can add to that safety with some
precautions of your own.
1. Keep your Bonds in a secure place;
a safe-deposit box is ideal.
2. In a separate place, keep a record
of each Bond number, just in case your
Bonds are lost, stolen, or burned. With
such information, you can get a Bond
reissued with the original date of pur
chase, or receive cash value if you desire.
3. When cashing in Savings Bonds, co
operate with bank officials as they check
your identification. Sometimes, Bond
holders resent these checks which, after
all, are for your own protection.
Thomas Bartkovsky's case dramatizes
this point He entered a bank and
attempted to cash 52 Savings Bonds. Most
people about to redeem an amount like
that are proud and full of plans for travel
or spending sprees.
Not Bartkovsky. He seemed shamed by
his nest egg and obviously had no plan
other than to collect his money and get
out of the bank. Officials became suspi
cious and started the crackdown on a ring
that had forged and cashed $68,050 in
stolen Savings Bonds.
It didn't take much to trip this ring,
just a suspicious bank official but it was
enough to send some ring members to
a Federal penitentiary for 10 years.
COVER:
A mother, like this one photographed by
Phoebe Dunn, is nourishment and warmth,
laughter and easy discipline but today,
her day, a mother is most of all to love.
Family Weekly, May 11, 1962
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