WHAT IS A FORGERY?

Is an act of simulating, copying or tracing somebody’s signature without the permission of the latter’s profit.

According to Wikipedia, Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally consists of the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific intent to defraud. Tampering with a certain legal instrument may be forbidden by law in some jurisdictions but such an offense is not related to forgery unless the tampered legal instrument was actually used in the course of the crime to defraud another person or entity. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations.

Forging money or currency is more often called counterfeiting. But consumer goods may also be counterfeits if they are not manufactured or produced by the designated manufacturer or producer given on the label or flagged by the trademark symbol. When the object forged is a record or document it is often called a false document.

THREE (3) MAJOR CATEGORIES OF FORGERY

SIMPLE FORGERY

Simple Forgery is a forged signature made without attempt on the part of the forger to imitate or make a facsimile of the genuine signatured of the person purported to sign the document.

Sometimes it is done with some modification of his own style and he takes advantage of the element of time so that things will be accomplished before it will be detected. This is one type of forgery that is very easy to identify, even by the ordinary person.

There were simple instances in which this type of forgery was made. For instance, in school, there are students in the hope of giving favors to their friends, might sign the name of their friend on the attendance sheet even though the said student is actually absent, the student writes his friend's name and opposite of which a signature which is actually a mere creation of the one signing it.

This type of forgery is also called as Spurious Signature or Blind Forgery.

Simulated Forgery

The Simulated forgery is considered to be the most skillful type of forgery. Although this form appears or is made in various levels of skills depending upon the forger. The reason for its being branded as the most skillful type lies in the fact that this process is done in not just an ordinary way, it takes real skill of different degrees in order for a forger to successfully imitate the signature which he intends to sign.

Through free-hand imitation, a gifted forger will practice over a scratch of paper twenty-thirty times before signing it to the fraudulent document. That is one of the reasons why at themoment the forger signs it, he signs with certain continuity as distinguished from those of amateur forger. It is also for this reason that detection of this type is relatively more difficult especially if skillfully done.

Simulated forgery is also called as Copied Forgery.

TRACED FORGERY

The traced forgery like a simulated forgery necessarily requires the aid of model signatures. As the name implies, the result of an attempt by the forger to make a close resemblance of the original by means of some tracing processes so as to transfer it to the fraudulent document. Some of the tracing processes used in making traced forgery are as follows:

Carbon Outline Process
Indention or Canal-Line Process
Transmitted Light or Projection Process

3 KINDS OF TRACED FORGERY

CARBON-OUTLINE PROCESS

This process is one of the most common means utilized by forgers in making a number of identical copies or records of certain entries. A piece of carbon paper either blue or black is interleaved between the genuine signature and the fraudulent document with the genuine document placed on top.

Using a dry pen or pointed instrument the outline of the model signature will then be traced in order to make an offset print of the carbon on the fraudulent document, if a piece of blue carbon was used, the signature outline will be a grossly approximate line of a blue pen. When black carbon was the one used, the signature outline would grossly resemble the work of a self-lead pencil.

PROJECTION or TRANSMITTED LIGHT PROCESS

In the projection-light process, the forger uses a light source such as a lightbox or lamp to illuminate a genuine signature from beneath the paper to be forged, making the original signature visible through the sheet.

The forger then traces the visible outline. This method leaves forensic clues such as shaky or hesitant strokes, uniform ink distribution, poor rhythm, patching, and other signs of slow and deliberate copying rather than natural writing.

INDENTION PROCESS

In the indention process, the forger places a genuine signature beneath the target paper and traces it using a pointed tool, creating shallow pressure marks or grooves on the top sheet. These indentations serve as a guide when rewriting the signature.

Forensic examiners detect this method by observing unnatural line quality, uniform pressure, tremors, slow execution, and the presence of indentations visible under oblique light or with an ESDA.

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