A DESPERATE GANG.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 159, 5 July 1916, Page 6

A DESPERATE GANG.

CONFIDENCE MAN CAUGHT. FORMERLY IN AUCKLAND. After working the confidence game in various parts of the world for over 30 years, Charles Mansfield, alias McNelly, alias C. Seaton Mansfield, alias George Mackay, alias Charles McC'ay, and alias Charles McCay Lawrence, was arrested in Sydney on the night of March 10 in a flat in a residential house in the city by Detective Matthews, Plain-clothcs-ConstaWe Sheehy, Traffic-Con-stable Gillies, and Constable Shields. He was sentenced to three years' imprisonment by Judge Docker for swindling, but recently appealed against the sentence. The conviction was upheld, and Mansfield, the leader of one of the cleverest gangs of confidence men and card-sharpers who have operated in Australia, is now at Long Bay prison to complete the sentence imposed upon him.

. The arrest of this swindler is one of the best efforts of the police for some years. He is about. 50 years of age, and was born in New Zealand. He is° a dentist by profession, and was in business for a few years in Auckland, but subsequently travelled the country towns of the Dominion extracting teeth at nominal rates. He, however, became clever in the art of extracting money by the means of card tricks and other doubtful schemes, and he deserted the legitimate means of livelihood for the illegitimate and became a crook. He is regarded byline detectives as being the cleverest card trickster in Australia to-day. and for the telling of a story to bring about a confidence game his equal is not here He and a gang of tricksters arrived in Sydney from America early last January Ihey were all born on this side of the glooe, but have been constantly travel1891.—Sydney "Sun." '