4 ms·

What amazes me is that at some point he didn't try and take his winnings off the table - convert to pounds or dollars - and head for the hills.

pjc50 7y ago
I wonder how convertible the Escudo was at the time? Some of his co-conspirators did successfully flee. The book epilogue interviewed them decades later.
- ferzul 7y ago
  the article says, deep in a paragraph about how he got caught, that Forex was illegal but largely ignored. > The Angola & Metropole illegally bought foreign exchange from him at a premium (money exchange was illegal in Portugal at the time, but in fact widespread and tolerated). The ledgers of these transactions were then torn out and destroyed. Although neither the teller nor the officials at the Porto branch of the Bank of Portugal could find any evidence that the bills from the Angola & Metropole were counterfeit, the circumstances were suspicious enough that the allegation was reported to Lisbon. I think Reis would have done much better than Hennies if he had fled; after all, Reis was a mastermind and Hennies was duped twice. (I think it's fair to absolve someone of the claim of poor investments in the late 1920s.)
andrepd 7y ago
From tfa: "Reis then proceeded to launder the bills into gold-backed foreign currencies and smaller denominations of Portuguese currency." So sounds like he did launder the money successfully, but he stuck around for the final part of his plot: gain a controlling share in Banco de Portugal to retroactively make his fiction become true.
- segmondy 7y ago
  I think your parent was talking about the fact that he knew he was going to be arrested and instead of fleeing like Hennies decided to fight it.
  - corford 7y ago
    Interestingly Reis may have made the right choice: Hennies ended up dying in poverty before Reis even finished his prison term. The only one that seems to have come out relatively unscathed was Marang, everyone else finished badly (including the printer in London).

pjc50 7y ago

I wonder how convertible the Escudo was at the time? Some of his co-conspirators did successfully flee. The book epilogue interviewed them decades later.

ferzul 7y ago
the article says, deep in a paragraph about how he got caught, that Forex was illegal but largely ignored. > The Angola & Metropole illegally bought foreign exchange from him at a premium (money exchange was illegal in Portugal at the time, but in fact widespread and tolerated). The ledgers of these transactions were then torn out and destroyed. Although neither the teller nor the officials at the Porto branch of the Bank of Portugal could find any evidence that the bills from the Angola & Metropole were counterfeit, the circumstances were suspicious enough that the allegation was reported to Lisbon. I think Reis would have done much better than Hennies if he had fled; after all, Reis was a mastermind and Hennies was duped twice. (I think it's fair to absolve someone of the claim of poor investments in the late 1920s.)

andrepd 7y ago

From tfa: "Reis then proceeded to launder the bills into gold-backed foreign currencies and smaller denominations of Portuguese currency." So sounds like he did launder the money successfully, but he stuck around for the final part of his plot: gain a controlling share in Banco de Portugal to retroactively make his fiction become true.

segmondy 7y ago
I think your parent was talking about the fact that he knew he was going to be arrested and instead of fleeing like Hennies decided to fight it.
- corford 7y ago
  Interestingly Reis may have made the right choice: Hennies ended up dying in poverty before Reis even finished his prison term. The only one that seems to have come out relatively unscathed was Marang, everyone else finished badly (including the printer in London).