Within Portugal Deceptions
How Were Fake Banknotes Printed as Real?
Alves Reis forged authority rather than currency, persuading an authorised printer to manufacture fraudulent notes from genuine plates.
On this page
- The forged contracts behind the secret currency order
- How genuine printing methods concealed the fraud
- The duplicated serial numbers that exposed the scheme
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Introduction
The Alves Reis affair is one of the strangest financial frauds in modern history because the banknotes at its centre were both genuine and illegitimate. In 1924–25, Portuguese swindler Artur Virgílio Alves Reis did not build a secret printing press or manufacture crude counterfeits. Instead, he forged contracts and official authorisations that convinced Waterlow & Sons, the Bank of Portugal’s legitimate banknote printer in London, to produce real Portuguese currency on genuine plates. The resulting notes were indistinguishable from authorised money because they were, in every physical sense, authentic. The fraud lay in the paperwork that ordered them.[wikipedia.org]WikipediaAlves dos ReisAlves dos Reis
The case remains famous because it attacked a deeper vulnerability than ordinary counterfeiting. Reis forged authority rather than currency. By exploiting trust in notarised documents, diplomatic certifications and institutional secrecy, he persuaded a respected security printer to manufacture money that should never have existed. The scandal exposed weaknesses in international verification systems and helped trigger a crisis that damaged confidence in Portugal’s financial institutions.[wikipedia.org]WikipediaAlves dos ReisAlves dos Reis
The Forged Contracts Behind the Secret Currency Order
Reis’s scheme began with a fictional development project for Angola, then a Portuguese colony. He created documents claiming that a confidential agreement existed between the Bank of Portugal and a consortium that would finance colonial development. According to the forged paperwork, additional banknotes were required as part of the arrangement.[wikipedia.org]WikipediaAlves dos ReisAlves dos Reis
The deception succeeded because the documents did not appear amateurish. Reis obtained notarial certifications, diplomatic authentications and supporting signatures that gave the paperwork an appearance of official legitimacy. He forged the signatures of senior Bank of Portugal officials, assembled translated versions of the documents and secured validations through diplomatic channels that made independent verification seem unnecessary.[Wikipedia]WikipediaAlves dos ReisAlves dos Reis
A crucial element was secrecy. Reis and his associates told intermediaries that the operation was politically sensitive and therefore had to remain confidential. Rather than raising suspicion, secrecy became part of the proof. The more unusual the arrangement appeared, the easier it became to explain why normal checks could not be performed. Waterlow & Sons, already accustomed to printing Portuguese currency, received apparently authentic authorisations and accepted them as genuine.[wikipedia.org]WikipediaAlves dos ReisAlves dos Reis
This was not a case of a printer knowingly participating in a fraud. Waterlow believed it was carrying out a legitimate order backed by the Portuguese authorities. The company’s mistake was trusting forged evidence that appeared to come from those authorities.[wikipedia.org]WikipediaAlves dos ReisAlves dos Reis
How Genuine Printing Methods Concealed the Fraud
The remarkable feature of the scheme was that nothing about the notes themselves looked suspicious. Waterlow used the same printing plates, paper, inks and security processes employed for legitimate Bank of Portugal issues. The notes were not copies of official currency; they were official currency produced without lawful authorisation.[pmgnotes.com]pmgnotes.comthe portuguese bank note crisis of 1925PMG NotesThe Portuguese Bank Note Crisis of 192529 Jan 2019 — Spurious reprints by Artur Virgilio Alves dos Reis rivaled legitimate ones…
Waterlow ultimately printed 200,000 notes of 500 escudos bearing the image of Vasco da Gama and the date 17 November 1922. Their face value totalled 100 million escudos, an enormous sum for Portugal at the time. There were eventually almost as many fraudulent 500-escudo notes in circulation as legitimate ones.[wikipedia.org]WikipediaAlves dos ReisAlves dos Reis
Because the notes were physically authentic, ordinary methods of detecting counterfeit money failed completely. Bank clerks could not identify them by touch, appearance or security features. Every technical test that distinguished genuine notes from forgeries confirmed that these notes were genuine. The fraud existed only in the chain of authorisation that had led to their creation.[wikipedia.org]WikipediaAlves dos ReisAlves dos Reis
Reis then introduced the notes into circulation through a network of associates. Some money was exchanged for foreign currency, some was deposited in banks, and some financed ambitious business ventures. He even established the Banco de Angola e Metrópole, helping create the impression that his wealth came from legitimate financial success rather than from unauthorised money creation.[wikipedia.org]WikipediaAlves dos ReisAlves dos Reis
Why So Many People Accepted the Story
The fraud exploited several conditions that made the deception plausible.
First, international business in the 1920s depended heavily on paper documentation. Notarised signatures, consular seals and certified translations carried enormous weight. Verification systems were slower and more fragmented than they would later become.[wikipedia.org]WikipediaAlves dos ReisAlves dos Reis
Second, colonial development schemes were common enough that a large, confidential financial arrangement for Angola did not seem impossible. The supposed purpose of the notes provided a believable explanation for their existence. Reis even claimed that the word “Angola” would later be added to the notes before they entered colonial circulation.[Wikipedia]WikipediaAlves dos ReisAlves dos Reis
Third, the operation benefited from assumptions about insider politics. Several participants later claimed that they believed powerful figures within Portugal were quietly supporting the arrangement. In an era when elite influence and opaque financial dealings were hardly unknown, the scheme appeared unusual but not unimaginable.[Wikipedia]WikipediaAlves dos ReisAlves dos Reis
The fraud therefore succeeded not because people abandoned scepticism, but because the evidence presented to them appeared to come from the very institutions that normally settled questions of authenticity.[Wikipedia]WikipediaAlves dos ReisAlves dos Reis
The Duplicated Serial Numbers That Exposed the Scheme
The weakness in Reis’s plan was not the quality of the banknotes but the bookkeeping behind them.
To make the notes appear legitimate, Reis needed serial numbers that matched genuine Bank of Portugal practices. However, the unauthorised order overlapped with serial-number ranges already used for authentic issues. The result was that some notes existed twice: two physically genuine banknotes carrying the same serial number.[Wikipedia]WikipediaAlves dos ReisAlves dos Reis
Rumours circulated throughout 1925 that unusual quantities of new 500-escudo notes were appearing, but investigators initially found nothing wrong because the notes passed every authenticity test. The breakthrough came only when officials examining large deposits noticed duplicate serial numbers. Once banks began arranging notes by serial sequence and comparing records, more duplicates quickly emerged.[Wikipedia]WikipediaAlves dos ReisAlves dos Reis
This discovery transformed the investigation. The problem could no longer be dismissed as rumour or accounting error. The Bank of Portugal contacted Waterlow & Sons, traced the suspicious issue back to the supposedly secret contract and uncovered the forged authorisations behind it.[Wikipedia]WikipediaAlves dos ReisAlves dos Reis
The exposure also explains why the case occupies a unique place in fraud history. Most counterfeiters are defeated because their fake notes contain flaws. Reis was exposed because his genuine notes created duplicate identities within the monetary system.[wikipedia.org]WikipediaAlves dos ReisAlves dos Reis
What the Fraud Revealed About Trust and Authority
The Alves Reis affair is often described as a counterfeiting scheme, but that description only partly captures what happened. Reis’s real target was the administrative process that authorised money creation. He demonstrated that if a criminal could successfully imitate institutional approval, even the most secure printing technology became irrelevant.[wikipedia.org]WikipediaAlves dos ReisAlves dos Reis
The scandal damaged confidence in Portuguese finance and led to legal battles involving the Bank of Portugal and Waterlow & Sons. It also became a classic example in discussions of fraud because it reversed the usual logic of forgery. Instead of producing fake notes that looked real, Reis arranged for real notes to be produced through fake authority.[bhsportugal.org]bhsportugal.orgalves reis and the portuguese bank note scandal of 1925In 1925 in London, the printing company Waterlow and Sons was persuaded to print Portuguese banknotes using the official plates it had.Re…
That inversion is why the story still circulates a century later. The mystery is not how counterfeit money entered circulation, but how authentic money became fraudulent. In the history of Portuguese deception, few episodes better illustrate the power of official-looking documents and the risks of trusting procedure without verification.[wikipedia.org]WikipediaAlves dos ReisAlves dos Reis
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Endnotes
1.
Source: Wikipedia
Title: Alves dos Reis
Link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alves_dos_Reis
2.
Source: bhsportugal.org
Title: alves reis and the portuguese bank note scandal of 1925
Link:https://www.bhsportugal.org/library/articles/alves-reis-and-the-portuguese-bank-note-scandal-of-1925
Source snippet
In 1925 in London, the printing company Waterlow and Sons was persuaded to print Portuguese banknotes using the official plates it had.Re...
3.
Source: lse.ac.uk
Link:https://www.lse.ac.uk/asset-library/information/wp8204.pdf
Source snippet
Virgilio Alves Reis, had deceived civil servants both abroad and in. Portugal...Read more...
4.
Source: bhsportugal.org
Link:https://www.bhsportugal.org/uploads/fotos_artigos/files/AlvesReisBanknoteScandal.pdf
Source snippet
The British Historical Society of PortugalOn Christmas Eve 1924 Alves Reis forged a second contract note using the signatures of the Gove...
5.
Source: Wikipedia
Title: Artur Alves dos Reis
Link:https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artur_Alves_dos_Reis
6.
Source: Wikipedia
Title: Scandalo della Banca del Portogallo
Link:https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandalo_della_Banca_del_Portogallo
7.
Source: visitmylisbon.com
Link:https://visitmylisbon.com/alves-dos-reis-portuguese-swindler/
8.
Source: portugal.com
Title: the portuguese scandal that changed the country forever
Link:https://www.portugal.com/history-and-culture/the-portuguese-scandal-that-changed-the-country-forever/
9.
Source: forschung-und-wissen.de
Link:https://www.forschung-und-wissen.de/magazin/der-geniale-falschgeld-betrug-von-alves-dos-reis-133710733
10.
Source: alextrias.substack.com
Title: lessons from the portuguese financial
Link:https://alextrias.substack.com/p/lessons-from-the-portuguese-financial
11.
Source: Wikipedia
Title: Counterfeit money
Link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfeit_money
12.
Source: pmgnotes.com
Title: the man who would be rich
Link:https://www.pmgnotes.com/news/article/4682/the-man-who-would-be-rich/
Source snippet
PMG NotesThe Man Who Would Be Rich1 Jul 2015 — Reis took the forged documents to William Waterlow, of the printing company Waterlow & Son...
13.
Source: pmgnotes.com
Title: the portuguese bank note crisis of 1925
Link:https://www.pmgnotes.com/news/article/7138/the-portuguese-bank-note-crisis-of-1925/
Source snippet
PMG NotesThe Portuguese Bank Note Crisis of 192529 Jan 2019 — Spurious reprints by Artur Virgilio Alves dos Reis rivaled legitimate ones...
14.
Source: damninteresting.com
Title: Damn Interesting Devouring the Heart of Portugal
Link:https://www.damninteresting.com/devouring-the-heart-of-portugal/
Source snippet
Damn InterestingDevouring the Heart of PortugalMay 3, 2022 — Alves Reis typed a four-page contract which claimed to be from the Bank of P...
Published: May 3, 2022
15.
Source: academickids.com
Title: Alves Reis
Link:https://academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Alves_Reis
Additional References
16.
Source: youtube.com
Title: The Portuguese Escudo
Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ77GIy7_js
Source snippet
"Alves Reis, the greatest Portuguese forger[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BOD4BVSlys&t=730s..."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BOD4BVSlys&t=730s...")...
17.
Source: youtube.com
Title: The Greatest Financial Fraud in Portugal
Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3WPLAoI5vg
Source snippet
The Portuguese Escudo - A 'Munson's Money Moment'...
18.
Source: thomasnumismatics.com
Link:https://thomasnumismatics.com/en/blog/alves-dos-reis/?srsltid=AfmBOor3S5RounWmTc-qousLAd_XcaZmopMVxOtLiUPpX7PhWoDuZLMG
19.
Source: facebook.com
Link:https://www.facebook.com/stacks.bowers/posts/in-1925-a-con-man-named-alves-reis-nearly-crashed-portugals-entire-economy-with-/1359195849582179/
20.
Source: youtube.com
Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5hY44gl4fM
21.
Source: reddit.com
Title: til in 1925 a forger convinced portugals money
Link:https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/14jscyo/til_in_1925_a_forger_convinced_portugals_money/
22.
Source: portugalresident.com
Title: alves reis and the banknote crisis of 1925
Link:https://www.portugalresident.com/alves-reis-and-the-banknote-crisis-of-1925/
23.
Source: essential-business.pt
Title: Essential Business Artur Alves dos Reis
Link:https://www.essential-business.pt/2025/12/31/artur-alves-dos-reis-the-man-who-almost-broke-the-bank-of-portugal/
24.
Source: rlf.org.uk
Title: the counterfeiters
Link:https://www.rlf.org.uk/posts/the-counterfeiters/
25.
Source: wiwo.de
Link:https://www.wiwo.de/erfolg/wiwo-history-tatort-dieser-gauner-duepierte-ein-ganzes-land-und-eine-londoner-gelddruckerei/30045634.html
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