While it is hard to explain away an off-set printer and gallons of green ink, the modern forger has nothing more incriminating than a PC and printer. Among the hundreds of cases of computer-forging turning up across the country, many involve school pupils found to have printed out just a few, sometimes simply for a dare.Matthew Hagens, 16, of Long Island, New York, was arrested last month, for instance, for passing a fake $10 note to buy bubble gum. He found the images from an Internet chat room, police said.Robert Rubin, US Treasury Secretary, wants longer sentences to be available in forgery cases. An alternative is to scan in a real banknote.So easy, a child could do it? Certainly. Or rather the computer and its co-conspirator, the ink-jet printer. To the dismay of the US Treasury, increasing numbers of citizens are making a common discovery: that even inexpensive home PCs can be used to turn out more or less convincing counterfeit money.
Images of the banknotes, whether in $100 denominations or lower, are freely available on the Internet Any computer-savvy person can download them and print them. “I have already begun sending out the strips to my various clients and you will appreciate the importance of being regular.”As the secret files from the Public Record office reveals, the cartoonists also ran into problems with their designs for the farmyard animals.

Sheridan complained that Boxer “the faithful, steady, plodding cart horse .. looks too pansy. He looks almost as effeminate as Pretty Polly herself.”The cartoon was not successful. Baffled by the lack of interest in Egypt, the IRD cabled the Cairo embassy, saying: “We suggest that a local artist convert oak trees into palms and substitute feathers for bowler hats and turn skirts in sarongs.”. THE AMERICAN dollar has a new enemy. It lurks in homes all across the land and is multiplying steadily It is the personal computer, alias PC. So Christopher Mayhew’s undercover Information Research Department tried to win hearts and minds with a work which had proved “a most effective propaganda weapon” in the West.
Cartoonist Norman Pett and scriptwriter Don Freeman were called in to create the cartoons, but soon ran up against the Foreign Office’s lack of flexibility.

Lieutenant-Colonel Leslie Sheridan insisted on a “regular drill” to ensure prompt delivery of the cartoon at his secret headquarters. He lost his seat at South Thanet, Kent, at the last election.. THE FOREIGN Office tried to use a cartoon version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm to counter the spread of post-war communism in British colonies in the Middle East and the Far East, according to documents released yesterday. In 1950, as the Cold War began to take hold, the authorities grew increasingly concerned that Russia and China were trying to extend their influence in colonies such as Singapore, what was then Malaya and Egypt. The libel action, which began in 1995, was expected to lead to Mr Aitken’s financial ruin but he was recently appointed to a position with defence giant GEC-Marconi.Mr Aitken resigned as Chief Secretary to the Treasury in April 1995 to fight the libel action.

She was subsequently arrested on suspicion of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.” The arrests provided the latest twist in Mr Aitken’s disastrous attempt to refute the allegations that he allowed Mr Ayas to pay his Ritz bill.Mr Aitken’s battle to clear his name using what he memorably described as “the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of fair play” led to his humiliation as the case collapsed last June. He dropped the action when lawyers for the Guardian and Granada Television produced evidence that Mrs Aitken had been in Switzerland at the time she was supposed to have paid the bill. They were due to support his claim that Mrs Aitken had paid the Ritz bill. Mr Ayas had provided a signed statement saying he had not paid the bill.Mr Aitken had always claimed that his own version of events was based on what he had been told by his wife and daughter. After studying written witness statements signed by the women, police officers travelled to Paris and Switzerland to examine the evidence.The family member, who asked not to be identified, said: “We were expecting something like this [the arrest of Victoria Aitken].” Ms Aitken, who is studying for A-levels at a sixth-form college in Oxford, returned to the family home nearly four hours after leaving for the police station and was met by a crowd of photographers and reporters.In a brief statement, Scotland Yard said: “A 17-year-old girl was interviewed at a London police station at a previously arranged meeting. Officers from the Metropolitan Police also arrested Said Ayas, 56, the Saudi millionaire said to have paid Mr Aitken’s bill at the Paris Ritz hotel in September 1993, an allegation which proved to be Mr Aitken’s downfall.Mr Ayas was then the business manager of Prince Mohammed bin Fahd, the son of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia.Last night a member of the Aitken family told The Independent that they believed Mr Aitken’s wife, Lolicia, would also have been arrested yesterday, had she not been abroad.Mr Aitken’s wife and daughter had both been due to give evidence in his libel action against the Guardian. A family member said that Mr Aitken expects to be arrested today when he keeps a pre-arranged appointment to be questioned by police over the affair.