Ceslaw Boyarski

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Ceslaw (Czesław) Bojarski (born December 15, 1917 in Poland , † May 2, 2003 ) was a French-Polish forger . It became famous in the 1960s for its highly fake 100 franc banknotes.

Boyarsky forged banknotes out of financial hardship. The counterfeit banknotes were difficult to distinguish from the originals. He carried out all the manufacturing steps alone in a cellar hiding place in his villa. It took 13 years before he was caught by accident. The persecutors recognized him as " Leonardo da Vinci the counterfeiter".

Life

Boyarski was born in Poland on December 15, 1917. He studied at the Politechnika Gdanska in Gdansk. As an officer in the Polish Army, he was taken prisoner in Hungary during the Second World War . However, he managed to flee to France . He stayed in France even after the Second World War. There he married a French woman from a middle-class family. On January 17, 1964, he was arrested by Chief Inspector Émile Benhamou and later sentenced to 20 years in prison. There are different statements for the further course. A source reports that he died while in captivity. Another testifies that after 13 years he was fired for good conduct.

plant

Boyarsky tried his hand at various inventions, including an electric razor. However, there was no financial success. He did not get a job as an engineer in France, presumably because of his poor knowledge of French.

He began to counterfeit banknotes in a hidden cellar in his villa. From paper production to printing, he took over every production step himself. He put the counterfeit banknotes into circulation extremely carefully. He never paid with more than one counterfeit banknote and always in different places. This made things difficult for his pursuer, Chief Inspector Émile Benhamou (who specializes in counterfeiting). Benhamou assumed a seven-man gang of counterfeiters. After the capture of Boyarski, Benhamou called him a genius. Because of the precision of the forgeries, Boyarsky was awarded the title "Leonardo da Vinci the counterfeiter" by Time Magazine .

literature

  • Dominique Raymond Poirier: Boyarski: King of the Banknote Counterfeiters . 2000

Movie

  • IMDB The film Le jardinier d'Argenteuil (in Germany: "Blossoms, crooks and the night of Nice") is based on the story of Boyarski

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Time Magazine June 3, 1966 Issue Time Magazine - France: The Leonardo of Forgers

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Boyarsky, Ceslaw
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Boyarski, Czeslaw
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Franco-Polish forger
DATE OF BIRTH December 15, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Poland
DATE OF DEATH 20th century