Artur Virgílio Alves dos Reis
Books
- Printed by the Bank Itself Alves dos Reis, Waterlow & Sons, and the Banknote Fraud That Shook Portugal · Liszt Think
In 1925, a Lisbon clerk with a forged Oxford diploma orchestrated the largest banknote fraud in history.
- The Clerk from Lisbon…reful handwriting of a clerk who had already learned to make his entries match the weight of the cargo rather than the weight of the paper. Artur Virgílio Alves dos Reis, twenty years old, ran his thumb along the edge of the document where the customs seal should have been. The ship from Luanda had arrived t…
- The Forged PedigreeThe confident loops of administrative authority could be transferred from one sheet of paper to another. Artur Virgílio Alves dos Reis had practiced them until his hand moved without hesitation, until the shapes felt natural rather than copied. Now, in the winter of 1922, h…
- The Porto Edition…bility of distinguishing between notes printed by Waterlow & Sons at the Bank of Portugal’s request and notes printed by Waterlow & Sons at Artur Virgílio Alves dos Reis’s instruction. The notes were identical because they were produced identically. Their material reality overwhelmed any abstract doubt about…