A gang that forged postage stamps was arrested.
The police succeeded in arresting a dangerous gang that specialized in forging rare postage stamps.
In 1921 (translator's note: the conference and stamps were issued in 1926), the International Navigation Conference was held in Cairo. At that time, the Egyptian Postal Service issued a new set of stamps in denominations of 5, 10, and 15 milliemes. Although a large number of these sets were sold, a significant quantity remained in the possession of the Postal Service. Upon the celebration of the opening Port Fouad City Due to time constraints, the department was unable to issue a new set of stamps, and therefore it was decided to overlay the navigation stamps with the word “Port Fouad”.
However, the unprecedented and unexpected demand for this edition was so strong that two enthusiasts died of suffocation due to the intense crowding. After a short period, this decorated set was being sold at very high prices: 20 pounds and sometimes reaching 25 pounds, which tempted some traders to try to profit from the situation, and using a “cliché”, they began decorating the word “Port Fouad” on the sets of the Navigation Conference and sold them to enthusiasts for amounts ranging between 20 and 25 pounds per set.
This information came to the attention of Salim Zaki Bey, the deputy governor of the capital, who ordered his assistants to quickly interrogate the merchants who were promoting the counterfeit sets, which ultimately led to the arrest of two Alexandrian merchants, the brothers Antoine and Jean Frangakis.
But before the arrest of the two famous merchants, Salim Zaki Bey had ordered the officer in charge of the operation to arrest the perpetrators in the act. So the officer went to the merchants’ shop, accompanied by Mr. Ahmed Ayad from the Crime Prevention Department and Mr. Ahmed Anwar Al-Adl from the Special Police Department, and they bought a number of counterfeit sets.
During the investigations, Antoine Frangakis confessed that the forgery of the postage stamps was the work of a man named Leon Armanak Hadnikian, who was surprised when the police knocked on his door while he was busy forging postage stamps by placing the forged overlay on some of the stamps! All the sets that were to be put on the market were seized, as were the “clichés.” The latter confessed that he had started forging this set since 1927 and had never been questioned by the police before this incident.
When the case was presented in court, Antoine Frangakis indicated that a Cairo postal service employee had purchased counterfeit stamp sets from him and resold them. He also provided the names and addresses of several Cairo residents who had assisted him in distributing the counterfeit stamps. Some individuals were arrested, while the investigation continues under the supervision of Inspector Ahmed Abdel Rahman of the Anti-Crime Department.
Translated and adapted by: Moheb Rizkallah
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