Telegraph Operator Arrested for Forgery
A Northern Pacific employee is behind bars after allegedly altering postal money orders to inflate their value at a downtown bank.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Captain Wiley and Detective Klett arrested J. C. Enfeld this afternoon on a charge of raising United States postal money orders. On Monday, Enfeld presented a money order for $55 at the Lumbermen’s National bank, which had been raised from an original value of $1. The bank discovered the fraud shortly after the transaction. Enfeld, a telegraph operator recently arrived from Muscatine, Iowa, and employed by the Northern Pacific, is now being held at the Central station pending federal charges.
“by a clever piece of work the order had been raised from $1 to $55.”
Financial fraud remains a recurring theme in local news, though today’s digital banking security has largely replaced the clever paper-forgery schemes of the early 20th century.
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