Counterfeit $5 Comisión Reguladora notes

On at least two occasions genuine $5 notes were used in criminal attempts.

First incidence

Sometime in January 1915 Adolfo Trujillo, a linotypist in the “Gamboa Guzman” printing press, owned by Luis Rosado Vega, noticed that a packet of $5 notes that Ildefonso Gutiérrez had brought back had been left at the office window, and taking advantage of Gutiérrez and Rosado Vega’s momentary lack of attention, took out ten, then made a seal, stamped the notes and used them for purchases.

Trujillo was fined $136 for the crime of forging a sello or contraseña^{AY, Fondo Justicia, Sección Juzgado de tercera instancia de lo Criminal, Serie Penal, vol. 25, exp. 36}.

Second incidence

On 12 September 1916 a Tránsito Solís was arrested in Mérida for counterfeiting $5 notes. He had given some to a young man, Laureano Hass, to buy him cigarettes and when subsequently apprehended was found to have another 39 notes. These notes had a bogus revalidation.

On 3 April 1916 Alvarado had set a month for the lower value Comisión Reguladora notes to be handed in, after which they would lack legal tender, but a month later, on 13 May, had ordered that notes that had been taken in by the Comisión as payment, could be revalidated as “ORO NACIONAL” and reissued. Obviously it would have been worthwhile to overstamp notes that had been declared worthless.

Various experts testified over the nature of the false seals, but after a couple of months in detention on 30 January 1917 Solís was finally released for lack of evidence of his own guilt^{AY, Fondo Justicia, Sección Juzgado de segunda instancia de lo Criminal, Serie Penal, vol. 55, exp. 24}.