Alves dos Reis
Encyclopedia
Artur Virgílio Alves Reis (Lisbon
, 3 September 1898 - 6 June 1955) was a Portuguese
criminal
who perpetrated one of the largest fraud
s in history, against Banco de Portugal
in 1925, often called the Portuguese Bank Note Crisis.
. He started his degree but quit in the first year to marry Maria Luísa Jacobetti de Azevedo, sister of Octávio Jacobetti de Azevedo and daughter of ... de Azevedo and Beatriz ..., in August 1916. In 1916 he decided to emigrate to Angola
which, at the time, was a Portuguese colony
, to try to make a fortune and escape the humiliations from his wife's family, due to their differences in social status.
Reis forged himself a diploma of engineering, supposedly from Oxford University, although in reality it was from a school which didn't exist: the "Polytechnic School of Engineering". According to the diploma, he had studied engineering sciences, geology
, geometry
, physics
, metallurgy
, pure mathematics
, paleography, electric
and mechanical engineering
, applied mechanics and physics. He started as a public employee in the public sewers
constructions and repairs. With an uncovered cheque
, he bought the major part of the stocks
of the Transafrican Railways of Angola, in Moçâmedes
. He became rich and gained credit.
in 1922. Back in Portugal he acquired a US car dealership and tried to take over the ailing company "Ambaca". He forged checks for over US $100,000, enough money to buy Ambaca, and then used its money reserves to cover the checks. He used the remaining money in an attempt to take over the Angola Mining Company. He was found out before he could take total control of the company and was arrested in July 1924 in Oporto for embezzling
the Ambaca money. He was arrested for 54 days and was released on August 27, 1924 because of a technicality; he blamed a criminal conspiracy for his arrest.
in the name of Banco de Portugal
(Bank of Portugal)- the central bank, responsible for issuing banknotes and partly private at the time - that would allow him to obtain illegitimate banknotes, printed by a legitimate printing contractor, and that would therefore be indistinguishable from real banknotes.
In 1924 Reis contacted potential good faith
business partners and detailed his new plan. Among his accomplice
s and collaborators were the Dutch
financier Karel Marang van IJsselveere, German spy Adolph Hennies, Adriano Silva, Moura Coutinho, Manuel Roquette, and José Bandeira, the brother of António Bandeira, Portuguese Ambassador in the Hague.
Through José Bandeira, Reis acquired his brother's signature for his contract. Then Reis wrote up the fraudulent contract and had it officially notarized
. He also acquired three certifications for the notarization in embassies of Britain
, Germany
and France
. Then he rewrote the contract with a French translation, forged signature
s of the Bank of Portugal officials and affixed the notarizations to the new contract to produce large banknotes. With this contract Reis gained cooperation of some Dutch entrepreneurs.
Next Karel Marang approached a Dutch printing company who declared that the specific banknotes had been printed by a British company, Waterlow and Sons Limited
of London
. On 4 December 1924, Marang approached Sir William Waterlow with a Dutch letter of introduction. He explained that for political reasons the contract required utmost discretion and promised that he would shortly receive appropriate documentation from Lisbon. The alleged objective for the banknotes was to conceal a big loan to the development of Angola.
When Waterlow received letters that authorized the printing - more of Reis' forgeries - he accepted the contract. He also wrote a letter to the governor of the Bank of Portugal
, Inocêncio Camacho Rodrigues, in which he talked about the contacts with Marang, but the letter went astray. Reis's accomplices promised that they would stamp the word "Angola" onto the new notes, because the notes were supposed to circulate only in the colonies, so Waterlow could use serial numbers similar to banknotes that were already circulating in Portugal.
Waterlow and Sons Limited printed 200,000 banknotes of 500 Portuguese escudo
s (which was equivalent to 0.88% of Portugal’s nominal GDP at the time) with an image of Vasco da Gama
, with the date of 17 November 1922 worth 100 million escudos. Then, the number of false 500 escudos banknotes was almost as large as the real ones. First delivery was made in February 1925, one year after the real 500-escudo banknotes with the image of Vasco da Gama began to circulate. The notes would go from England to Portugal with the help of his accomplices, José Bandeira, who would use the diplomatic advantages of his brother, Karel Marang, and connections to the Liberia
n consul
in London. Reis proceeded to launder
them into smaller denominations of genuine money.
Although Reis alone conceived the scheme, and forged all the documents, he received only 25% of the proceeds. Still, he became very wealthy and created the "Bank of Angola and Metropolis" in June 1925 to aid in circulation by promising higher interest. To obtain the license to open the bank, again he forged some documents. He invested heavily in currency
and stock market
and even created a minor upsurge in the Portuguese economy, since he had managed to unilaterally increase the real money supply
. He bought the Palace of the Golden Boy (Palácio do Menino de Ouro, nowadays the building of the British Council
in Lisbon), 3 farms, a taxi fleet, and spent an enormous quantity of money on jewellery
and expensive clothing
for his wife and José Bandeira's lover, Fie Carelsen, a Dutch actress. He intended to purchase the newspaper Diário de Notícias
, but failed.
However, the intent on Reis' investments were to take over the Bank of Portugal
, so he could thwart any possible investigations to his scheme. During the Summer of 1925, he bought 7000 shares of the Bank. By the end of September he had 9000 and in November 10,000 shares - he needed 45,000 shares to gain control of the bank.
. Starting on 23 November 1925, Alves dos Reis and his shady business deals began to attract the curiosity of journalists at the newspaper O Século
(Portuguese
for "The Century"), the most important daily newspaper at the time. Journalists tried to understand how it was possible that Reis' bank, Banco de Angola e Metrópole, gave loans with low interest rates without the need of receiving deposits. Initially, it was thought that it was a German tactic to disturb the country and obtain advantages within the Angolan colony.
O Século publicly revealed the fraud on 5 December 1925. The day before, the Bank of Portugal had sent the inspector João Teixeira Direito, to Oporto, to investigate the huge deposits by the Banco de Angola e Metrópole in banknotes of 500 escudos at the cambist
firm Pinto da Cunha. They finally found banknotes with matching duplicate serial numbers. Authorities gave all the bank agencies an order to put their notes in the vault by order of serial number to detect the duplicates and many more forged notes were found. The Bank of Portugal contacted Waterlow and Sons and Reis' scheme fell apart. On 6 December, Reis' bank's wealth was confiscated and Reis and most of his associates were arrested. Reis himself was arrested on board the Adolph Woerman en route to Portugal from Angola. He was 28 years old. Only Marang and Adolph Hennies, who was with Reis at the moment of his arrest, escaped.
In the following trial, Reis' forged documents were convincing enough for judges to suspect that the Bank of Portugal officials might be really involved. This delayed the sentence for five years, but Reis was finally tried in May 1930. He was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison. In prison Reis became a Christian and led to the conversion of other prisoners. He was released in May 1945, and was offered a job as a bank employee, but refused. Later he would be convicted for fraud, in a sale of coffee
from Angola
, but did not serve time in jail.
Alves dos Reis died of a heart attack
in poverty, in 1955.
Marang was tried in the Netherlands and sentenced to 11 months. He later gained French
citizenship and died very rich in Cannes
.
Hennies fled to Germany and reappeared later under his real name, Hans Döring. He died in 1957, also in poverty.
fell and it lost much of its credibility. After the scheme was found out, the Bank of Portugal ordered the withdrawal of all 500-escudo banknotes within 20 days, until December 26; 115,000 counterfeit notes were withdrawn.
When Reis's fraud became public knowledge in December 1925 it brought about a crisis of confidence in the Portuguese government. Although events of this period are still little understood, this crisis had a strong effect on the nationalist military 28th May 1926 coup d'état
against the Portuguese First Republic
government and President Bernardino Machado that brought the Ditadura Nacional
(National Dictatorship) to power, heralding the dictatorship of Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar
from 1932 to 1968 (See: Estado Novo).
Banco de Portugal sued Waterlow & Sons in the High Court
in London
. In one of the most complex trials in English legal history, the case was finally settled in the House of Lords
on 28 April 1932 in favour of the Banco de Portugal, which was awarded £610,392 in damages.
Waterlow & Sons' business never completely recovered; it was finally acquired by De La Rue
in 1961. Sir William Waterlow had been dismissed as president of the printing house and was elected mayor of London in 1929. He died of peritonitis
on 6 July 1931 before the final judgment of the House of Lords.
was held with some of the fake notes with the starting bid estimated at 6,500 euro
s.
investigator Francisco Moita Flores, with the full title Alves dos Reis, Um Seu Criado ("Alves dos Reis, Your Servant") and broadcast by RTP1.
The fraud has been the subject of episode "Duplikát" of Czechoslovakia
-West Germany
TV series Dobrodružství kriminalistiky ("Adventure of Criminalistics"). Reis has been portrayed by Jan Teplý.
The fraud has been also the subject of Italy
TV mini series Accadde a Lisbona.
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
, 3 September 1898 - 6 June 1955) was a Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
criminal
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
who perpetrated one of the largest fraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
s in history, against Banco de Portugal
Banco de Portugal
The Banco de Portugal is the central bank of the Republic of Portugal. Established by a royal charter of 19 November 1846 to act as a commercial bank and issuing bank, it came about as the result of a merger of the Banco de Lisboa and the Companhia de Confiança Nacional, an investment company...
in 1925, often called the Portuguese Bank Note Crisis.
Early life
Alves dos Reis was a child of a humble family; his father was a financially troubled undertaker who ended up being declared insolvent. Reis wanted to study engineeringEngineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
. He started his degree but quit in the first year to marry Maria Luísa Jacobetti de Azevedo, sister of Octávio Jacobetti de Azevedo and daughter of ... de Azevedo and Beatriz ..., in August 1916. In 1916 he decided to emigrate to Angola
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...
which, at the time, was a Portuguese colony
Colony
In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception....
, to try to make a fortune and escape the humiliations from his wife's family, due to their differences in social status.
Reis forged himself a diploma of engineering, supposedly from Oxford University, although in reality it was from a school which didn't exist: the "Polytechnic School of Engineering". According to the diploma, he had studied engineering sciences, geology
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
, geometry
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....
, physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, metallurgy
Metallurgy
Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use...
, pure mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, paleography, electric
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
and mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles of physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage of heat and mechanical power for the...
, applied mechanics and physics. He started as a public employee in the public sewers
Sanitary sewer
A sanitary sewer is a separate underground carriage system specifically for transporting sewage from houses and commercial buildings to treatment or disposal. Sanitary sewers serving industrial areas also carry industrial wastewater...
constructions and repairs. With an uncovered cheque
Cheque
A cheque is a document/instrument See the negotiable cow—itself a fictional story—for discussions of cheques written on unusual surfaces. that orders a payment of money from a bank account...
, he bought the major part of the stocks
Stocks
Stocks are devices used in the medieval and colonial American times as a form of physical punishment involving public humiliation. The stocks partially immobilized its victims and they were often exposed in a public place such as the site of a market to the scorn of those who passed by...
of the Transafrican Railways of Angola, in Moçâmedes
Moçamedes
Moçâmedes may refer to:*Moçâmedes, was the name of a region and its chief city in the Portuguese Overseas Province of Angola, the present-day Namibe province and city, in South-Western Angola....
. He became rich and gained credit.
The Ambaca affair
Reis returned to LisbonLisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
in 1922. Back in Portugal he acquired a US car dealership and tried to take over the ailing company "Ambaca". He forged checks for over US $100,000, enough money to buy Ambaca, and then used its money reserves to cover the checks. He used the remaining money in an attempt to take over the Angola Mining Company. He was found out before he could take total control of the company and was arrested in July 1924 in Oporto for embezzling
Embezzlement
Embezzlement is the act of dishonestly appropriating or secreting assets by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted....
the Ambaca money. He was arrested for 54 days and was released on August 27, 1924 because of a technicality; he blamed a criminal conspiracy for his arrest.
Banco de Portugal plot
During his time in jail Reis conceived his most ambitious plot. It consisted of forging a contractContract
A contract is an agreement entered into by two parties or more with the intention of creating a legal obligation, which may have elements in writing. Contracts can be made orally. The remedy for breach of contract can be "damages" or compensation of money. In equity, the remedy can be specific...
in the name of Banco de Portugal
Banco de Portugal
The Banco de Portugal is the central bank of the Republic of Portugal. Established by a royal charter of 19 November 1846 to act as a commercial bank and issuing bank, it came about as the result of a merger of the Banco de Lisboa and the Companhia de Confiança Nacional, an investment company...
(Bank of Portugal)- the central bank, responsible for issuing banknotes and partly private at the time - that would allow him to obtain illegitimate banknotes, printed by a legitimate printing contractor, and that would therefore be indistinguishable from real banknotes.
In 1924 Reis contacted potential good faith
Good faith
In philosophy, the concept of Good faith—Latin bona fides “good faith”, bona fide “in good faith”—denotes sincere, honest intention or belief, regardless of the outcome of an action; the opposed concepts are bad faith, mala fides and perfidy...
business partners and detailed his new plan. Among his accomplice
Accomplice
At law, an accomplice is a person who actively participates in the commission of a crime, even though they take no part in the actual criminal offense. For example, in a bank robbery, the person who points the gun at the teller and asks for the money is guilty of armed robbery...
s and collaborators were the Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
financier Karel Marang van IJsselveere, German spy Adolph Hennies, Adriano Silva, Moura Coutinho, Manuel Roquette, and José Bandeira, the brother of António Bandeira, Portuguese Ambassador in the Hague.
Through José Bandeira, Reis acquired his brother's signature for his contract. Then Reis wrote up the fraudulent contract and had it officially notarized
Wiktionary
Wiktionary is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in 158 languages...
. He also acquired three certifications for the notarization in embassies of Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. Then he rewrote the contract with a French translation, forged signature
Signature
A signature is a handwritten depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" that a person writes on documents as a proof of identity and intent. The writer of a signature is a signatory. Similar to a handwritten signature, a signature work describes the work as readily identifying...
s of the Bank of Portugal officials and affixed the notarizations to the new contract to produce large banknotes. With this contract Reis gained cooperation of some Dutch entrepreneurs.
Next Karel Marang approached a Dutch printing company who declared that the specific banknotes had been printed by a British company, Waterlow and Sons Limited
Waterlow and Sons
The Waterlow and Sons Limited was a major worldwide engraver of currency, postage stamps, stocks and bond certificates established in 1897, in England.-Portuguese Bank Note Crisis:...
of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. On 4 December 1924, Marang approached Sir William Waterlow with a Dutch letter of introduction. He explained that for political reasons the contract required utmost discretion and promised that he would shortly receive appropriate documentation from Lisbon. The alleged objective for the banknotes was to conceal a big loan to the development of Angola.
When Waterlow received letters that authorized the printing - more of Reis' forgeries - he accepted the contract. He also wrote a letter to the governor of the Bank of Portugal
Banco de Portugal
The Banco de Portugal is the central bank of the Republic of Portugal. Established by a royal charter of 19 November 1846 to act as a commercial bank and issuing bank, it came about as the result of a merger of the Banco de Lisboa and the Companhia de Confiança Nacional, an investment company...
, Inocêncio Camacho Rodrigues, in which he talked about the contacts with Marang, but the letter went astray. Reis's accomplices promised that they would stamp the word "Angola" onto the new notes, because the notes were supposed to circulate only in the colonies, so Waterlow could use serial numbers similar to banknotes that were already circulating in Portugal.
Waterlow and Sons Limited printed 200,000 banknotes of 500 Portuguese escudo
Portuguese escudo
The escudo was the currency of Portugal prior to the introduction of the Euro on 1 January 1999 and its removal from circulation on 28 February 2002. The escudo was subdivided into 100 centavos....
s (which was equivalent to 0.88% of Portugal’s nominal GDP at the time) with an image of Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira was a Portuguese explorer, one of the most successful in the Age of Discovery and the commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India...
, with the date of 17 November 1922 worth 100 million escudos. Then, the number of false 500 escudos banknotes was almost as large as the real ones. First delivery was made in February 1925, one year after the real 500-escudo banknotes with the image of Vasco da Gama began to circulate. The notes would go from England to Portugal with the help of his accomplices, José Bandeira, who would use the diplomatic advantages of his brother, Karel Marang, and connections to the Liberia
Liberia
Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
n consul
Consul
Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...
in London. Reis proceeded to launder
Money laundering
Money laundering is the process of disguising illegal sources of money so that it looks like it came from legal sources. The methods by which money may be laundered are varied and can range in sophistication. Many regulatory and governmental authorities quote estimates each year for the amount...
them into smaller denominations of genuine money.
Although Reis alone conceived the scheme, and forged all the documents, he received only 25% of the proceeds. Still, he became very wealthy and created the "Bank of Angola and Metropolis" in June 1925 to aid in circulation by promising higher interest. To obtain the license to open the bank, again he forged some documents. He invested heavily in currency
Currency
In economics, currency refers to a generally accepted medium of exchange. These are usually the coins and banknotes of a particular government, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply...
and stock market
Stock market
A stock market or equity market is a public entity for the trading of company stock and derivatives at an agreed price; these are securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately.The size of the world stock market was estimated at about $36.6 trillion...
and even created a minor upsurge in the Portuguese economy, since he had managed to unilaterally increase the real money supply
Money supply
In economics, the money supply or money stock, is the total amount of money available in an economy at a specific time. There are several ways to define "money," but standard measures usually include currency in circulation and demand deposits .Money supply data are recorded and published, usually...
. He bought the Palace of the Golden Boy (Palácio do Menino de Ouro, nowadays the building of the British Council
British Council
The British Council is a United Kingdom-based organisation specialising in international educational and cultural opportunities. It is registered as a charity both in England and Wales, and in Scotland...
in Lisbon), 3 farms, a taxi fleet, and spent an enormous quantity of money on jewellery
Jewellery
Jewellery or jewelry is a form of personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets.With some exceptions, such as medical alert bracelets or military dog tags, jewellery normally differs from other items of personal adornment in that it has no other purpose than to...
and expensive clothing
Clothing
Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...
for his wife and José Bandeira's lover, Fie Carelsen, a Dutch actress. He intended to purchase the newspaper Diário de Notícias
Diário de Notícias
Diário de Notícias is a Portuguese daily newspaper, founded in Lisbon, on December 29, 1864 by Tomás Quintino Antunes and Eduardo Coelho. It gradually became one of the best known Portuguese newspapers...
, but failed.
However, the intent on Reis' investments were to take over the Bank of Portugal
Banco de Portugal
The Banco de Portugal is the central bank of the Republic of Portugal. Established by a royal charter of 19 November 1846 to act as a commercial bank and issuing bank, it came about as the result of a merger of the Banco de Lisboa and the Companhia de Confiança Nacional, an investment company...
, so he could thwart any possible investigations to his scheme. During the Summer of 1925, he bought 7000 shares of the Bank. By the end of September he had 9000 and in November 10,000 shares - he needed 45,000 shares to gain control of the bank.
Discovery and arrest
Throughout 1925, rumours of fake banknotes arose, but the experts didn't detect any banknote that looked fake. On October 1925, a teller in Oporto, became suspicious and phoned bank officials in LisbonLisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
. Starting on 23 November 1925, Alves dos Reis and his shady business deals began to attract the curiosity of journalists at the newspaper O Século
O Século
O Século was a Portuguese daily newspaper published in Lisbon from 1880 to 1978.It was established by the journalist Sebastião de Magalhães Lima, who had studied Law at the University of Coimbra. O Século was a newspaper of record, and a great rival of the Diário de Notícias....
(Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
for "The Century"), the most important daily newspaper at the time. Journalists tried to understand how it was possible that Reis' bank, Banco de Angola e Metrópole, gave loans with low interest rates without the need of receiving deposits. Initially, it was thought that it was a German tactic to disturb the country and obtain advantages within the Angolan colony.
O Século publicly revealed the fraud on 5 December 1925. The day before, the Bank of Portugal had sent the inspector João Teixeira Direito, to Oporto, to investigate the huge deposits by the Banco de Angola e Metrópole in banknotes of 500 escudos at the cambist
Exchange rate
In finance, an exchange rate between two currencies is the rate at which one currency will be exchanged for another. It is also regarded as the value of one country’s currency in terms of another currency...
firm Pinto da Cunha. They finally found banknotes with matching duplicate serial numbers. Authorities gave all the bank agencies an order to put their notes in the vault by order of serial number to detect the duplicates and many more forged notes were found. The Bank of Portugal contacted Waterlow and Sons and Reis' scheme fell apart. On 6 December, Reis' bank's wealth was confiscated and Reis and most of his associates were arrested. Reis himself was arrested on board the Adolph Woerman en route to Portugal from Angola. He was 28 years old. Only Marang and Adolph Hennies, who was with Reis at the moment of his arrest, escaped.
In the following trial, Reis' forged documents were convincing enough for judges to suspect that the Bank of Portugal officials might be really involved. This delayed the sentence for five years, but Reis was finally tried in May 1930. He was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison. In prison Reis became a Christian and led to the conversion of other prisoners. He was released in May 1945, and was offered a job as a bank employee, but refused. Later he would be convicted for fraud, in a sale of coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
from Angola
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...
, but did not serve time in jail.
Alves dos Reis died of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
in poverty, in 1955.
Fate of other accomplices
Bandeira received a sentence of 15 years. He died on 9 June 1957 in poverty.Marang was tried in the Netherlands and sentenced to 11 months. He later gained French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
citizenship and died very rich in Cannes
Cannes
Cannes is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera, a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival. It is a Commune of France in the Alpes-Maritimes department....
.
Hennies fled to Germany and reappeared later under his real name, Hans Döring. He died in 1957, also in poverty.
Repercussions
Reis's fraud had enormous repercussions on the economy and politics of Portugal. By the end of 1925 Reis had managed to introduce escudo banknotes worth £1,007,963 (at 1925 exchange rates) into the Portuguese economy. The exchange rate of the Portuguese escudoPortuguese escudo
The escudo was the currency of Portugal prior to the introduction of the Euro on 1 January 1999 and its removal from circulation on 28 February 2002. The escudo was subdivided into 100 centavos....
fell and it lost much of its credibility. After the scheme was found out, the Bank of Portugal ordered the withdrawal of all 500-escudo banknotes within 20 days, until December 26; 115,000 counterfeit notes were withdrawn.
When Reis's fraud became public knowledge in December 1925 it brought about a crisis of confidence in the Portuguese government. Although events of this period are still little understood, this crisis had a strong effect on the nationalist military 28th May 1926 coup d'état
28th May 1926 coup d'état
The 28 May 1926 coup d'état, sometimes called 28 May Revolution or, during the period of Estado Novo , National Revolution , was a military action that put an end to the unstable Portuguese First Republic and initiated the Ditadura Nacional , later, renamed the Estado Novo, an authoritarian...
against the Portuguese First Republic
Portuguese First Republic
The Portuguese First Republic spans a complex 16 year period in the history of Portugal, between the end of the period of constitutional monarchy marked by the 5 October 1910 revolution and the 28 May coup d'état of 1926...
government and President Bernardino Machado that brought the Ditadura Nacional
Ditadura Nacional
The Ditadura Nacional was the name of the Portuguese regime initiated by the election of President Óscar Carmona in 1928 that lasted until the adoption of the new constitution in 1933, when the régime changed its name to Estado Novo...
(National Dictatorship) to power, heralding the dictatorship of Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar
António de Oliveira Salazar
António de Oliveira Salazar, GColIH, GCTE, GCSE served as the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1932 to 1968. He also served as acting President of the Republic briefly in 1951. He founded and led the Estado Novo , the authoritarian, right-wing government that presided over and controlled Portugal...
from 1932 to 1968 (See: Estado Novo).
Banco de Portugal sued Waterlow & Sons in the High Court
High Court of Justice
The High Court of Justice is, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, one of the Senior Courts of England and Wales...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. In one of the most complex trials in English legal history, the case was finally settled in the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
on 28 April 1932 in favour of the Banco de Portugal, which was awarded £610,392 in damages.
Waterlow & Sons' business never completely recovered; it was finally acquired by De La Rue
De La Rue
De La Rue plc is a British security printing, papermaking and cash handling systems company headquartered in Basingstoke, Hampshire. It also has a factory on the Team Valley Trading Estate, Gateshead, and other facilities at Loughton, Essex and Bathford, Somerset...
in 1961. Sir William Waterlow had been dismissed as president of the printing house and was elected mayor of London in 1929. He died of peritonitis
Peritonitis
Peritonitis is an inflammation of the peritoneum, the serous membrane that lines part of the abdominal cavity and viscera. Peritonitis may be localised or generalised, and may result from infection or from a non-infectious process.-Abdominal pain and tenderness:The main manifestations of...
on 6 July 1931 before the final judgment of the House of Lords.
Current collectibles
In 27 October 2005, an auctionAuction
An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...
was held with some of the fake notes with the starting bid estimated at 6,500 euro
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
s.
In popular culture
In 2000, Alves dos Reis life was depicted in a 50-episode TV series written by the former Polícia JudiciáriaPolícia Judiciária
The Polícia Judiciária is the main police branch of criminal investigation in Portugal, dedicated to fighting criminality, organized crime, terrorism, drugs, corruption and financial crimes...
investigator Francisco Moita Flores, with the full title Alves dos Reis, Um Seu Criado ("Alves dos Reis, Your Servant") and broadcast by RTP1.
The fraud has been the subject of episode "Duplikát" of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
-West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
TV series Dobrodružství kriminalistiky ("Adventure of Criminalistics"). Reis has been portrayed by Jan Teplý.
The fraud has been also the subject of Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
TV mini series Accadde a Lisbona.
Further reading
- Murray Teigh Bloom - The Man Who Stole Portugal, London: Secker & Warburg (1966)
- Andrew Bull - "Alves Reis and the Portuguese Bank Note Scandal of 1925" The British Historical Society No. 24: pp 22–57 (1997)
- C Kisch - The Portuguese Bank Note Case London: Macmillan (1932)
- Artur Virgilio Alves Reis - O Angola e Metrópole – "Dossier Secreto." Lisbon (1927)
- Thomas Gifford - The Man from Lisbon 1977 (novel)
External links
- The Effects Of The 1925 Portuguese Bank Note Crisis, Henry Wigan, Department of Economic History, London School of EconomicsLondon School of EconomicsThe London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
, February 2004.