People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1894 — GOLD “SWEATERS” CAUGHT. [ARTICLE]

GOLD “SWEATERS” CAUGHT.

Two More of a Gang of Swindlers Arrested by Treasury Officers. Washington, April 12.—Detectives Freurgerand Reilly, of Baltimore, were at the treasury department Tuesday and reported to Chief Hazen, of the secret service, the arrest of a man and woman in Baltimore on a charge of mutilating gold coin by lightening them. From their description Chief Hazen recognized James L. Wilcox and his wife, whom the secret service officers have been in search of for some months. They are members of a gang which has been operating extensively in Chicago, Denver, Omaha, Sioux City and St. Louis. Their specialty was “sweating” S2O-gold pieces, and so successful have they been that it is estimated that from $50,000 to $75,000 in gold coin has been artistically shaved, remilled and passed again into circulation. The leader of the gang, W. I<. Shaw, is still at large. Those under arrest are A. B. Peck, a dentist; Mr. and Mrs. J. L. Wilcox and Ralph Wilcox, a brother of J. L. Wilcox. Shaw and Wilcox ostensibly conducted a real estate business in Chicago, but Wilcox, who is an expert machinist, spent his time in a room on Adams street skillfully trimming gold coins by means of a large lathe.