The Times' correspondent at Geneva says a really magnifi- cent
swindle, quite the largest in idea of our time, has been detected there. Several persons—one a gentleman, and another an eminent jeweller—have been arrested on a charge of coining false gold pieces on an enormous scale. They were accustomed, it seems, to send vast quanties of "bullion medals" to Mar- seilles, whence a confederate, who found the capital, shipped them for Alexandria, the Levant, and India. These medals were sometimes imitations of rupees, but usually of gold Turkish or Egyptian pieces, used throughout the East for hoard- ing. They were weighted with platinum, thickly gilt, and in appearance, taste, and weight, were, real coins. With excessive cleverness, the shippers paid duty on them at Alexandria, Smyrna, and other ports as bullion, and thus blinded the Customs officers, who never imagined that swindlers would pay the highest duties. The pieces were greedily absorbed by the people as coins, and it is said Egypt is se full of them, that the Government must call in its gold currency. It is believed that from 2400,000 to 21,600,000 of this coinage have been sold, and one of the accused has been so enriched by the traffic, that he deposited solid bail to the amount -of '240,000. The Government of India will do well to leek to the mohurs which pass through its hands, and which, from the absence of the milled edge, can be easily imitated, when once the weight difficulty is overcome.
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