Economic trouples in the Second Polish Republic were favourable for scammers. “Banksters” would appear in north-eastern Poland

Coins from the Polish Second Republic. Photo: Private collection of the author

The re-established Polish state faced immense financial challenges in 1918. The Polish state loan institution that issued Polish marks was already created during the First World War. The currency became the first medium of exchange in independent Poland. However, inflation was devaluating the Polish currency daily. In 1919 a US dollar was worth 9 marks. A year later – 110, two years later – 3000 and in 1924 around 6,5 million marks. The inflation crippled the capitals of banks and citizens. As a result, many one-day banks popped up that made their revenues mostly on currency speculation.

One of these phantom banks was the Wilno Agrigultural-Industrial Bank with its branches in Grodno, Głębokie, Dołhinów, Święciany and Dzisna. In December 1925 a Latvian financial group became the partner of this institution. A year later the bank filed for bankrupcy. This was in large part caused by the introduction of the złoty in 1924. The new Polish currency also contributed to the stabilization of the financial market. The banking sector was not free from scams. The leadership was accused of meddling with promissory notes hurting the giants such as the Polish Bank and the National Development Bank.

In March of 1926 employees of the Wilno Trade Bank were arrested. The investigation showed that they had been conducting banking operations according to “gray schemes”. The losses of the bank amounted to 50 thousand złoty. The bank employees had procured properties and a car for these funds. In 1933 the north-eastern voivodships spread the news about the suicide of Stanisław Ruszkiewicz, the director of the Wilno branch of the bank supervising the production of sugar. The decision to commit suicide was taken out of fear of the punishment for the scams. After an investigation it was clear that 300 bags of sugar were missing from the warehouses, which amounted to 20 thousand złoty. It turned out that Ruszkiewicz sold them all and kept the profits for himself.

Counterfeiters

In March 1936, a group of fraudsters arrived in Wilejka. They would open up a Credit Union set up as a company with a positive credit history. Although the activity of this “Credit Union” was just over a few months they managed to cheat several companies.

The most famous banking scam in the north-eastern voivodships of Poland was the falsification of savings accounts in the PKO bank. The branches of this institution were in Wilno, Oszmiana and Święciany. A growth in crimes where attempts were made to draw money from fake saving accounts was noted during the global crisis of 1932-1934. The fraudsters would counterfeit the account book itself (checks) or add a few zeros to the number figuring in it. Usually, the people that lived in the so-called Kresy would keep small amounts in these saving accounts. They would draw another “circle” and if the cashier was not experienced – well, “easy money” as they say in the movies.

In 1933 the police in Wilno arrested Marcin Niewiarowski who was in possession of a large number of saving account checks printed in Oszmiana. The scammer had falsified the amounts and the signatures of the owners. In that way he could cash out at the registers. Furthermore, his two sons and daughter were accused of forging banking documents. In May of 1931, a gang of counterfeiters led by Shchloma Tenenbaum was arrested in Lida. This man had come into contact with the workers of a chemical laboratory in Równe. Together they “galvanized” golden Russian chervonets coins separating the gold and as a result lowering their weight by 10-15 per cent. It is worth noting that the golden coins depicting the last Russian tsar were a popular currency in Poland and served as one of the main forms of growing and safeguarding capital.

These altered chervonets coins did not look different from the originals. The fraudsters would buy new coins from the earnings that these “tenners” made and send them to Równe. The officers of state police came across the trail of the criminals by accident. One of the dentists in Lida who bought the tsar-era coins claimed that their weight was lower than usual. After the police was called in an investigation showed that not only private persons fell victims to Tenenbaum’s gang, but many banks as well. In 1937, members of another gang were arrested in the Nowogródek voivodship. They had been producing fake silver coins worth 10 złoty. They based their scam on Russian silver roubles.

Savings account from the interwar period. Photo: Private archives of the author

Noble criminals

Mortgage loan fraud was also not uncommon. In September 1931, the provincial savings account in Wilno was visited by a man who wanted a loan in order to build a house. As a collateral he proposed his apartment which he had the appropriate documents for. After he signed the guarantees, he received five thousand US dollars (the American currency was accepted back then). Soon enough it was clear that the loan was taken up by a scammer – the Belarusian Stanisław Wolejsza, who was guilty of several similar crimes going back to tsarist times. This time around he did not manage to elude justice. He was arrested in 1932 and sentenced to five years in prison.

There were however also noble criminals. In October 1933 Jakub Grillin planned to emigrate to the US. He met a man that promised to help him get abroad. Grillin would pay a hundred dollars for the organization of this trip. Shortly after the middleman disappeared. A few weeks later Jakub received a letter from Palestine where the fraudster apologized and promised to send the money plus interests through the PKO bank (which had a branch in Palestine). As it turned out, Grillin would receive his money from Tel Aviv. Such stories were rather rare.

In 1936 a man popped up in Wilno claiming he was Lasman, a captain in the British army. He was supposedly looking for volunteers for the civil war in Spain. He would take a cut for his services. Police became interested in this Lansman. Following a investigation it turned out that the captain was really someone called Bernukiewicz from Nowogródek. He knew 13 languages which helped him open a language school. Once he had received the money from the students he ran off. He had done several similar scams in other Polish cities.

“If currency notes circulate in the country, then there are people who have a lot of them” – apparently, not only the hero of the Soviet novel The Golden Calf Ostap Bender thought so, but also many enthusiasts of easy money from Poland. The Second World War that started in September 1939 changed the history of Europe. The Polish authority in the north-eastern voivodships was replaced by the “worker and peasant Soviet authority”, which changed the rules on the financial markets. Thus, marking the end of the great schemers of the Kresy.

This article was first published in Polish by NEW.org.pl

The author is currently serving a 4-year sentence in a penal colony, accused by the Belarusian authorities of “promoting extremist activities”.

Ihar Melnikau is a Belarusian Ph.D. historian, essayist, journalist, blogger and editor of the history portal Historia Pobach. Associate Professor of Wrocław University. He is the author of various academic and journalistic articles and 18 books, including The border was near Minsk 1921-1941 and Forgotten Corps. The Polish Army in the Bobruisk Area 1918-1920, The death of Empire. The history of the Battle of Baranovichi in 1916, Collaboration. The anatomy of betrayal фтв щерукы in which he addresses little-known aspects of Belarusian history and Belarusian-Polish relations during the Second World War.

“We suport the Belarusian Awakening’24” is a project co-financed by Solidarity Fund PL within the framework of Polish development cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland in the amount of PLN 230,000.

This publication expresses the views of the author only and cannot be identified with the official position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.

economy, money, Polish history, scammers