Large-scale counterfeiting

There are at least a couple of references to large-scale attempts to counterfeit Banco Nacional de México notes, both of which were foiled. There is no evidence that these attempts got beyond the planning stage.

An editorial in the Economista Mexicano in October 1909 reported that there had recently been talk of a large-scale counterfeiting of Banco Nacional de México banknotes, made in the United States, which if it had not been discovered in time, would have caused immeasurable damage to all the banks of issue^{El Economista Mexicano, Tomo XLVIII, Núm. 27, 2 October 1909}.

Then, in 1911 Hector Ramos, the head of a private detective agency in New York working in Mexico City (Ramos would go on to become Pancho Villa’s secret policeman), was approached by two elegantly dressed individuals, Agustín Mustieles and Antonio Moreno, with a business proposal. Ramos pretended to accept and was summoned to some rooms in a house on the Paseo de la Reforma. He was shown a large wad of counterfeit Banco Nacional de México notes of the $5, $10 and $20 denominations, and told that Mustieles and Moreno would sell up to four million pesos to him at half their face value and that he, Ramos, could of course put them into circulation, since they were perfectly accepted by the Banco Nacional de México, of which they were secret agents. They added that the bank did this, so that the Government would not be aware of the series issued. Ramos was already working with Francisco Chávez, the First Chief of the Reserved Police, and when he went to his second appointment at the Hotel Washington, Chávez and two of his subordinates occupied a room above the one where the business was to be finalized and from where they would listen to the conversation. (another version has one of the policemen hiding under the bed).

The plan worked and the businessmen fell into the trap. Mustieles and Moreno arranged that for $75,000, which they would receive in cash, they would supply counterfeit notes representing twice that amount, while Ramos promised to continue buying more from them until the sum of four million pesos was completed. They even made a draft contract, dictated by Mustieles and written by Moreno, which reads: "I hereby undertake to make the exchange of 3,950,000 pesos in notes of the National Bank, of 5, 10 and 20 pesos, corresponding to the 1910 series; that I will buy them at half their value, not being authorized by the Government, but admitted by the Bank" (Por la presente me comprometo á hacer el cambio de 3,950,000 pesos en billetes del Banco Nacional, de 5, 10 y 20 pesos, correspondientes á la serie 1910; que los compraré á la mitad de su valor, no siendo éstos autorizados por el Gobierno, pero sí admitidos por el Banco.)” This, they later claimed, they did in order to get Ramos ro implicate himself.

Mustieles and Moreno were arrested and sent to the Belén Prison. When they were searched, fragments of a book on lithography that served as a guide for the counterfeiting of banknotes was found^{Iberia, Año V, Núm. 1418, 16 February 1911: El Imparcial, Tomo XXX, Núm. 6164, 17 February 1911} .