Alves dos Reis is a great story. He managed to forge the central bank request to print notes, the notes were literally from the same printing presses so they weren't even fakes, as you mention.
I recently got hold of the book ("the man who stole portugal") and it's full of tremendous little details, like the notes being delivered by the printers in travelling trunks to the left luggage office of Victoria station. The whole thing relied on William Waterlow being spectacularly naive combined with Reis' skills in forging credentials and letters of introduction.
